Annie Besant : an autobiography

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THE080PHICAL SOCIETY,
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ANNIE BESANT

Fii tti a l-hi tograf-)i by II. S. Mcmichsi^liii, 27, Cathcai t K^'iul, Sc^!i//i Ki'iisia^/on. Loulou.

-OJME BESANT.
188;

ANNIE BESANT

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Illustrated

LONDON
T. FISHER UNWIN

SECOND EDITIGN

PREFACE.

IT is a difficult thing to tell the story of a life, and
yet more difficult when that life is one's own. At
the best, the telling has a savour of vanity, and the
only excuse for the proceeding is that the life, being
an average one, reflects many others, and in troublous
times like ours may give the experience of many rather
than of one. And so the autobiographer does his
work because he thinks that, at the cost of some
unpleasantness to himself, he may throw light on some
of the typical problems that are vexing the souls of
his contemporaries, and perchance may stretch out a
helping hand to some brother who is struggling in the
darkness, and so bring him cheer when despair has him
in its grip. Since all of us, men and women of this
restless and eager generation — surrounded by forces we
dimly see but cannot as yet understand, discontented
with old ideas and half afraid of new, greedy for the
material results of the knowledge brought us by
Science but looking askance at her agnosticism as
regards the soul, fearful of superstition but still more
fearful of atheism, turning from the husks of out-
grown creeds but filled with desperate hunger foi

6 PREFACE.

spiritual ideals — since all of us have the same anxieties,
the same griefs, the same yearning hopes, the same pas-
sionate desire for knowledge, it may well be that the
story of one may help all, and that the tale of one
soul that went out alone into the darkness and on the
other side found light, that struggled through the
Storm and on the other side found Peace, may bring
some ray of light and of peace into the darkness and
the storm of other lives.

ANNIE BESANT.

The Theosophical Society,
17 & 19, Avenue Road, Regent's Park, London.
Jugustf 1893.

CONTENTS.

CHAP. FAGB

I. "out of the everywhere into the here" ... II

II. EARLY CHILDHOOD ... ... ... 29

in. GIRLHOOD ... ... ... ... ... 47

IV. marriage ... ... ... ... 65

V. THE STORM OF DOUBT ... ... ... ... lOI

VI. CHARLES BRADLAUGH ... ... ... I3I

VII. ATHEISM AS I KNEW AND TAUGHT IT ... ... I4.I

VIII. AT WORK ... ... ... ... 177

IX. THE KNOWLTON PAMPHLET ... ... ... 20$

X. AT WAR ALL ROUND ... ... ... 245

XI. MR. BRADLAUGH's STRUGGLE ... ... ... 253

XII. STILL FIGHTING ... ... ... ... 277

XIII. SOCIALISM ... ... ... ... ... 299

XIV. THROUGH STORM TO PEACE •.. ... 329

LIST OF BOOKS QUOTED ... ... ... 365

INDEX ... ... ... ... ... 367

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

ANNIE BESANT, 1885... ... ... ... Frotittsptece

HOROSCOPE OF ANNIE BESANT ... ... P^g^ 12

ANNIE BESANT, 1 869 ... ... ... Facing page 86

THOMAS SCOTT ... ... ... ... „ 112

CHARLES BRADLAUGH, M.P. ... ... ... „ 212

CHARLES BRADLAUGH AND HENRY LABOUCHERE ... „ 254

NORWICH BRANCH OF THE SOCIALIST LEAGUE ... „ 3I4

STRIKE COMMITTEE OF THE MATCHMAKERS* UNION „ 336

MEMBERS OF THE MATCHMAKERS* UNION ... ... „ 338

CHAPTER I.
"out of the everywhere into the here."

ON October i, 1847, ^ ^"^ credibly informed, my
baby eyes opened to the light (?) of a London
afternoon at 5.39.

A friendly astrologer has drawn for me the following
chart, showing the position of the planets at this, to me
fateful, moment ; but I know nothing of astrology, so
kel no wiser as I gaze upon my horoscope.

Keeping in view the way in which sun, moon, and
planets influence the physical condition of the earth,
there is nothing incongruous with the orderly course
of nature in the view that they also influence the
physical bodies of men, these being part of the
physical earth, and largely moulded by its conditions.
Any one who knows the characteristics ascribed to
those who are born under the several signs of the
Zodiac, may very easily pick out the different types
among his own acquaintances, and he may then get
them to go to some astrologer and find out under what
signs they were severally born. He will very quickly
discover that two men of completely opposed types

42.32

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vt

fs?

"W"? 10,4 V

"OUT OF THE EVERYWHERE." 13

are not bom under the same sign, and the invariabilit •
of the concurrence will convince him that law, ana
not chance, is at work. We are born into earthly life
under certain conditions, just as we were physically
affected by them pre-natally, and these will have their
bearing on our subsequent physical evolution. At the
most, astrology, as it is now practised, can only calcu-
late the interaction between these physical conditions at
any given moment, and the conditions brought to them
by a given person whose general constitution and natal
condition are known. It cannot say what the person
will do, nor what will happen to him, but only what
will be the physical district, so to speak, in which he
will find himself, and the impulses that will play upon
him from external nature and from his own body.
Even on those matters modern astrology is not quite
reliable — judging from the many blunders made — or
else its professors are very badly instructed ; but that
there is a real science of astrology I have no doubt,
and there are some men who are past masters in it.
It has always been somewhat of a grievance to me
that I was born in London, " within the sound of Bow
Bells," when three-quarters of my blood and all my
heart are Irish. My dear mother was of purest Irish
descent, and my father was Irish on his mother's side,
thoiigh belonging to the Devonshire Woods on his
father's. The Woods were yeomen of the sturdy
English type, farming their own land in honest,
ndependent fashion. Of late years they seem to have
developed more in the direction of brains, from the
time, in fact, that Matthew Wood became Mayor

14 ANNIE BESANT.

of London town, fought Queen Caroline's battles
against her most religious and gracious royal husband,
aided the Duke of Kent with no niggard hand, and
received a baronetcy for his services from the Duke
of Kent's royal daughter. Since then they have given
England a Lord Chancellor in the person of the gentle-
hearted and pure-living Lord Hatherley, while others
have distinguished themselves in various ways in the
service of their country. But I feel playfully inclined
to grudge the English blood they put into my father's
veins, with his Irish mother, his Galway birth, and his
Trinity College, Dublin, education. For the Irish
tongue is musical in my ear, and the Irish nature
dear to my heart. Only in Ireland is it that if you
stop to ask a worn-out ragged woman the way to
some old monument, she will say : ^' Sure, then, my
darlin', it's just up the hill and round the corner,
and then any one will tell you the way. And it's there
you'll see the place where the blessed Saint Patrick set
his foot, and his blessing be on yer." Old women as
poor as she in other nations would never be as bright
and as friendly and as garrulous. And where, out of
Ireland, will you see a whole town crowd into a station
to say good-bye to half a dozen emigrants, till the
platform is a heaving mass of men and women,
struggling, climbing over each other for a last kiss,
crying, keening, laughing, all in a breath, till all the
air is throbbing and there's a lump in your throat and
tears in your eyes as the train steams out ? Where,
out of Ireland, will you be bumping along the streets
on an outside car, beside a taciturn Jarvey, who, on^

"OUT OF THE EVERYWHERE." 15

suddenly discovering that you are shadowed by
" Castle " spies, becomes loquaciously friendly, and
points out everything that he thinks will interest
you ? Blessings on the quick tongues and warm
hearts, on the people so easy to lead, so hard to
drive. And blessings on the ancient land once in-
habited by mighty men of wisdom, that in later times
became the Island of Saints, and shall once again
be the Island of Sages, when the Wheel turns
round.

My maternal grandfather was a typical Irishman,
much admired by me and somewhat feared also, in the
childish days. He belonged to a decayed Irish family,
the Maurices, and in a gay youth, with a beautiful
wife as light-hearted as himself, he had merrily run
through what remained to him in the way of fortune.
In his old age, with abundant snow-white hair, he still
showed the hot Irish blood on the lightest provocation,
stormily angry for a moment and easily appeased. My
mother was the second daughter in a large family, in a
family that grew more numerous as pounds grew fewer,
and she was adopted by a maiden aunt, a quaint memory
of whom came through my mother's childhood into
mine, and had its moulding effect on both our
characters. This maiden aunt was, as are most Irish
folk of decayed families, very proud of her family
tree with its roots in the inevitable *' kings." Her
particular kings were the *' seven kings of France " —
the " Milesian kings " — and the tree grew up a parch-
ment, in all its impressive majesty, over the mantelpiece
of their descendant's modest drawing-room. This

i6 ANNIE BESANT.

heraldic monster was regarded with deep respect
by child Emily, a respect in no wise deserved, I
venture to suppose, by the disreputable royalties of
whom she was a fortunately distant twig. Chased out
of France, doubtless for cause shown, they had come
over the sea to Ireland, and there continued their
reckless plundering lives. But so strangely turns the
wheel of time that these ill-doing and barbarous scamps
became a kind of moral thermometer in the home of
the gentle Irish lady in the early half of the present
century. For my mother has told me that when she
had committed some act of childish naughtiness, her
aunt would say, looking gravely over her spectacles at
the small culprit, "Emily, your conduct is unworthy
of the descendant of the seven kings of France."
And Emily, with her sweet grey Irish eyes and her
curling masses of raven black hair, would cry in
penitent shame over her unworthiness, with some
vague idea that those royal, and to her very real,
ancestors would despise her small, sweet, rosebud self,
so wholly unworthy of their disreputable majesties.

Thus those shadowy forms influenced her in child-
hood, and exercised over her a power that made her
shrink from aught that was unworthy, petty or mean.
To her the lightest breath of dishonour was to be
avoided at any cost of pain, and she wrought into me,
her only daughter, that same proud and passionate
horror at any taint of shame or merited disgrace. To
the world always a brave front was to be kept, and
a stainless reputation, for suffering might be borne but
dishonour never. A gentlewoman might starve, but

"OUT OF THE EVERYWHERE." 17

she must not run in debt ; she might break her heart,
but it must be with a smile on her face. I have often
thought that the training in this reticence and pride of
honour was a strange preparation for my stormy,
public, much attacked and slandered life ; and certain
it is that this inwrought shrinking from all criticism
that touched personal purity and personal honour
added a keenness of suffering to the fronting of
public odium that none can appreciate who has not
been trained in some similar school of dignified self-
respect. And yet perhaps there was another result
from it that in value outweighed the added pain : it
was the stubbornly resistant feeling that rose and in-
wardly asserted its own purity in face of foulest lie,
and turning scornful face against the foe, too proud
either to justify itself or to defend, said to itself in its
own heart, when condemnation was loudest : " I am
not what you think me, and your verdict does not
change my own self. You cannot make me vile what-
ever you think of me, and I will never, in my own
eyes, be that which you deem me to be now." And
the very pride became a shield against degradation, for,
however lost my public reputation, I could never bear
to become sullied in my own sight — and that is a thing
not without its use to a woman cut off, as I was at one
time, from home, and friends, and Society. So peace
to the maiden aunt's ashes, and to those of her absurd
kings, for I owe them something after all. And I keep
grateful memory of that unknown grand-aunt, for
what she did in training my dear mother, the
tenderest, sweetest, proudest, purest of women. It

2

i8 ANNIE BESANT.

is well to be able to look back to a mother who
served as ideal of all that was noblest and dearest
during childhood and girlhood, whose face made the
beauty of home, and whose love was both sun and
shield. No other experience in life could quite make
up for missing the perfect tie between mother and
child — a tie that in our case never relaxed and never
weakened. Though her grief at my change of faith
and consequent social ostracism did much to hasten
her death-hour, it never brought a cloud between our
hearts ; though her pleading was the hardest of all to
face in later days, and brought the bitterest agony, it
made no gulf between us, it cast no chill upon our
mutual love. And I look back at her to-day with the
same loving gratitude as ever encircled her to me in
her earthly life. I have never met a woman more
selflessly devoted to those she loved, more passionately
contemptuous of all that was mean or base, more keenly
sensitive on every question of honour, more iron in
will, more sweet in tenderness, than the mother who
made my girlhood sunny as dreamland, who guarded
me, until my marriage, from every touch of pain that
she could ward off or bear for me, who suffered more
in every trouble that touched me in later life than I did
myself, and who died in the little house I had taken
for our new home in Norwood, worn out, ere old age
touched her, by sorrow, poverty, and pain, in May,
1874.

My earliest personal recollections are of a house and
garden that we lived in when I was three and four
years of age, situated in Grove Road, St. John's Wood.

"OUT OF THE EVERYWHERE." 19

I can remember my mother hovering round the dinner-
table to see that all was bright for the home-coming
husband ; my brother — two years older than myself —
and I watching " for papa " ; the loving welcome, the
game of romps that always preceded the dinner of the
elder folks. I can remember on the ist of October,
1 85 1, jumping up in my little cot, and shouting out
triumphantly : *' Papa ! mamma ! I am four years
old ! " and the grave demand of my brother, conscious
of superior age, at dinner-time : " May not Annie have
a knife to-day, as she is four years old ? "

It was a sore grievance during that same year, 1851,
that I was not judged old enough to go to the Great
Exhibition, and I have a faint memory of my brother
consolingly bringing me home one of those folding
pictured strips that are sold in the streets, on which
were imaged glories that I longed only the more to
see. Far-away, dusky, trivial memories, these. What
a pity it is that a baby cannot notice, cannot observe,
cannot remember, and so throw light on the fashion of
the dawning of the external world on the human con-
sciousness. If only we could remember how things
looked when they were first imaged on the retinae ;
what we felt when first we became conscious of the
outer world ; what the feeling was as faces of father
and mother grew out of the surrounding chaos and
became familiar things, greeted with a smile, lost with
a cry ; if only memory would not become a mist when
in later years we strive to throw our glances backward
into the darkness of our infancy, what lessons we might
learn to help our stumbling psychology, how many

20 ANNIE BESANT.

questions might be solved whose answers we are
groping for in the West in vain.

The next scene that stands out clearly against the
background of the past is that of my father's death-
bed. The events which led to his death I know from
my dear mother. He had never lost his fondness for
the profession for which he had been trained, and
having many medical friends, he would now and then
accompany them on their hospital rounds, or share with
them the labours of the dissecting-room. It chanced
that during the dissection of the body of a person who
had died of rapid consumption, my father cut his finger
against the edge of the breast-bone. The cut did not
heal easily, and the finger became swollen and inflamed.
" I would have that finger off, Wood, if I were you,"
said one of the surgeons, a day or two afterwards, on
seeing the state of the wound. But the others laughed
at the suggestion, and my father, at first inclined to
submit to the amputation, was persuaded to " leave
Nature alone.*'

About the middle of August, 1852, he got wet
through, riding on the top of an omnibus, and the
wetting resulted in a severe cold, which " settled on
his chest." One of the most eminent doctors of the
day, as able as he was rough in manner, was called to
see him. He examined him carefully, sounded his
lungs, and left the room followed by my mother.
" Well ? " she asked, scarcely anxious as to the answer,
save as it might worry her husband to be kept idly at
home. " You must keep up his spirits," was the
thoughtless answer. " He is in a galloping consump-

"OUT OF THE EVERYWHERE." 2i

tion ; you will not have him with you six weeks
longer." The wife staggered back, and fell like a
stone on the floor. But love triumphed over agony,
and half an hour later she was again at her husband's
side, never to leave it again for ten minutes at a time,
night or day, till he was lying with closed eyes asleep
in death.

I was lifted on to the bed to " say good-bye to dear
papa" on the day before his death, and I remember
being frightened at his eyes which looked so large, and
his voice which sounded so strange, as he made me
promise always to be " a very good girl to darling
mamma, as papa was going right away." I remember
insisting that " papa should kiss Cherry," a doll given
me on my birthday, three days before, by his direction,
and being removed, crying and struggling, from the
room. He died on the following day, October 5th,
and I do not think that my elder brother and I — who
were staying at our maternal grandfather's — went to the
house again until the day of the funeral. With the
death, my mother broke down, and when all was over
they carried her senseless from the room. I remember
hearing afterwards how, when she recovered her senses,
she passionately insisted on being left alone, and locked
herself into her room for the night ; and how on the
following morning her mother, at last persuading her
to open the door, started back at the face she saw with
the cry : " Good God, Emily ! your hair is white ! "
It was even so ; her hair, black, glossy and abundant,
which, contrasting with her large grey eyes, had made
her face so strangely attractive, had turned grey in that

22 ANNIE BESANT.

night of agony, and to me my mother's face is ever
framed in exquisite silver bands of hair as white as
the driven unsullied snow.

I have heard that the love between my father and
mother was a very beautiflil thing, and it most certainly
stamped her character for life. He was keenly intel-
lectual and splendidly educated ; a mathematician and
a good classical scholar, thoroughly master of French,
German, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, with a
smattering of Hebrew and Gaelic, the treasures of
ancient and of modern literature were his daily house-
hold delight. Nothing pleased him so well as to sit
with his wife, reading aloud to her while she worked ;
now translating from some foreign poet, now rolling
forth melodiously the exquisite cadences of " Queen
Mab." Student of philosophy as he was, he was deeply
and steadily sceptical ; and a very religious relative
has told me that he often drove her from the room
by his light, playful mockery of the tenets of the
Christian faith. His mother and sister were strict
Roman Catholics, and near the end forced a priest into
his room, but the priest was promptly ejected by the
wrath of the dying man, and by the almost fierce
resolve of the wife that no messenger of the creed he
detested should trouble her darling at the last.

Deeply read in philosophy, he had outgrown the
orthodox beliefs of his day, and his wife, who loved
him too much to criticise, was wont to reconcile her
own piety and his scepticism by holding that " women
ought to be religious," while men had a right to read
everything and think as they would, provided that they

« OUT OF THE EVERYWHERE." 23

were upright and honourable in their lives. But the
result of his liberal and unorthodox thought was to
insensibly modify and partially rationalise her own
beliefs, and she put on one side as errors the doctrines
of eternal punishment, the vicarious atonement, the
infallibility of the Bible, the equality of the Son with
the Father in the Trinity, and other orthodox beliefs,
and rejoiced in her later years in the writings of such
men as Jowett, Colenso, and Stanley. The last named,
indeed, was her ideal Christian gentleman, suave,
polished, broad-minded, devout in a stately way. The
baldness of a typical Evangelical service outraged her
taste as much as the crudity of Evangelical dogmas out-
raged her intellect ; she liked to feel herself a Christian
in a dignified and artistic manner, and to be surrounded
by solemn music and splendid architecture when she
" attended Divine service." Familiarity with celestial
personages was detestable to her, and she did her duty
of saluting them in a courtly and reverent fashion.
Westminster Abbey was her favourite church, with its
dim light and shadowy distances ; there in a carven
stall, with choristers chanting in solemn rhythm, with
the many-coloured glories of the painted windows re-
peating themselves on upspringing arch and clustering
pillars, with the rich harmonies of the pealing organ
throbbing up against screen and monument, with the
ashes of the mighty dead around, and all the stately
memories of the past inwrought into the very masonry,
there Religion appeared to her to be intellectually
dignified and emotionally satisfactory.

To me, who took my religion in strenuous fashion,

24 ANNIE BESANT.

this dainty and well-bred piety seemed perilously like
Laodicean lukewarmness, while my headlong vigour of
conviction and practice often jarred on her as alien
from the delicate balance and absence of extremes that
should characterise the gentlewoman. She was of the old
regime ; I of the stuff from which fanatics are made :
and I have often thought, in looking back, that she
must have had on her lips many a time unspoken a
phrase that dropped from them when she lay a-dying :
" My little one, you have never made me sad or sorry
except for your own sake ; you have always been too
religious." And then she murmured to herself:
" Yes, it has been darling Annie's only fault ; she has
always been too religious." Methinks that, as the
world judges, the dying voice spake truly, and the
dying eyes saw with a real insight. For though I was
then kneeling beside her bed, heretic and outcast, the
heart of me was religious in its very fervour of repudi-
ation of a religion, and in its rebellious uprising against
dogmas that crushed the reason and did not satisfy the
soul. I went out into the darkness alone, not because
religion was too good for me, but because it was not
good enough ; it was too meagre, too commonplace,
too little exacting, too bound up with earthly interests,
too calculating in its accommodations to social con-
ventionalities. The Roman Catholic Church, had it
captured me, as it nearly did, would have sent me on
some mission of danger and sacrifice and utilised me as
a martyr ; the Church established by law transformed
me into an unbeliever and an antagonist.

For as a child I was mystical and imaginative

"OUT OF THE EVERYWHERE." 25

religious to the very finger-tips, and with a certain
faculty for seeing visions and dreaming dreams. This
faculty is not uncommon with the Keltic races, and
makes them seem " superstitious " to more solidly-built
peoples. Thus, on the day of my father's funeral, my
mother sat with vacant eyes and fixed pallid face — the
picture comes back to me yet, it so impressed my
childish imagination — following the funeral service,
stage after stage, and suddenly, with the words, " It is
all over ! " fell back fainting. She said afterwards that
she had followed the hearse, had attended the service,
had walked behind the coffin to the grave. Certain it
is that a few weeks later she determined to go to the
Kensal Green Cemetery, where the body of her husband
had been laid, and went thither with a relative ; he
failed to find the grave, and while another of the party
went in search of an official to identify the spot, my
mother said, " If you will take me to the chapel where
the first part of the service was read, I will find the
grave." The idea seemed to her friend, of course,
to be absurd ; but he would not cross the newly-made
widow, so took her to the chapel. She looked round,
left the chapel door, and followed the path along which
the corpse had been borne till she reached the grave,
where she was quietly standing when the caretaker
arrived to point it out. The grave is at some distance
from the chapel, and is not on one of the main roads ;
it had nothing on it to mark it, save the wooden peg
with the number, and this would be no help to identi-
fication at a distance since all the graves are thus
marked, and at a little way off these pegs are not

26 ANNIE BESANT.

visible. How she found the grave remained a mystery
in the family, as no one believed her straightforward
story that she had been present at the funeral. With
my present knowledge the matter is simple enough, for
I now know that the consciousness can leave the body,
take part in events going on at a distance, and, returning,
impress on the physical brain what it has experienced.
The very fact that she asked to be taken to the chapel
is significant, showing that she was picking up a
memory of a previous going from that spot to the
grave ; she could only find the grave if she started from
the place from which she had started before. Another
proof of this ultra-physical capacity was given a few
months later, when her infant son, who had been pining
himself ill for " papa," was lying one night in her arms.
On the next morning she said to her sister : " Alf is
going to die." The child had no definite disease, but
was wasting away, and it was argued to her that the
returning spring would restore the health lost during
the winter. " No," was her answer. " He was lying
asleep in my arms last night, and William " (her husband)
"came to me and said that he wanted Alf with him,
but that I might keep the other two." In vain she was
assured that she had been dreaming, that it was quite
natural that she should dream about her husband, and
that her anxiety for the child had given the dream its
shape. Nothing would persuade her that she had not
seen her husband, or that the information he had given
her was not true. So it was no matter of surprise to
her when in the following March her arms were empty,
and a waxen form lay lifeless in the baby's cot.

" OUT OF THE EVERYWHERE." 27

My brother and I were allowed to see him just before
he was placed in his coffin ; I can see him still, so white
and beautiful, with a black spot in the middle of the
fair, waxen forehead, and I remember the deadly cold
which startled me when I was told to kiss my little
brother. It was the first time that I had touched
Death. That black spot made a curious impression on
me, and long afterwards, asking what had caused it, I
was told that at the moment after his death my mother
had passionately kissed the baby brow. Pathetic
thought, that the mother's kiss of farewell should have
been marked by the first sign of corruption on the
child's face !

I do not mention these stories because they are in
any fashion remarkable or out of the way, but only to
show that the sensitiveness to impressions other than
physical ones, that was a marked feature in my own
childhood, was present also in the family to which I
belonged. For the physical nature is inherited fi-om
parents, and sensitiveness to psychic impressions is a
property of the physical body ; in our family, as in so
many Irish ones, belief in "ghosts" of all descriptions
was general, and my mother has told me of the banshee
that she had heard wailing when the death-hour of one
of the family was near. To me in my childhood, elves
and fairies of all sorts were very real things, and my
dolls were as really children as I was myself a child.
Punch and Judy were living entities, and the tragedy in
which they bore part cost me many an agony of tears ;
to this day I can remember running away when I heard
the squawk of the coming Punch, and burying my head

28 ANNIE BESANT.

in the pillows that I might shut out the sound of the
blows and the cry of the ill-used baby. All the objects
about me were to me alive, the flowers that I kissed
as much as the kitten I petted, and I used to have a
splendid time " making believe " and living out all sorts
of lovely stories among my treasured and so-called in-
animate playthings. But there was a more serious side
to this dreamful fancy when it joined hands with
religion.

CHAPTER II.

EARLY CHILDHOOD.

AND now began my mother's time of struggle and
of anxiety. Hitherto, since her marriage, she
had known no money troubles, for her husband was
earning a good income ; he was apparently vigorous
and well : no thought of anxiety clouded their future.
When he died, he believed that he left his wife and
children safe, at least, from pecuniary distress. It was
not so. I know nothing of the details, but the out-
come of all was that nothing was left for the widow
and children, save a trifle of ready money. The
resolve to which my mother came was characteristic.
Two of her husband's relatives. Western and Sir
William Wood, offered to educate her son at a good
city school, and to start him in commercial life, using
their great city influence to push him forward. But
the young lad's father and mother had talked of a
different future for their eldest boy; he was to go to
a public school, and then to the University, and was to
enter one of the " learned professions " — to take orders,
the mother wished; to go to the Bar, the father hoped.
On his death-bed there was nothing more earnestly

99

30 ANNIE BESANT.

urged by my father than that Harry should receive the
best possible education, and the widow was resolute to
fulfil that last wish. In her eyes, a city school was not
" the best possible education," and the Irish pride re-
belled against the idea of her son not being " a Uni-
versity man." Many were the lectures poured out on
the young widow's head about her "foolish pride,"
especially by the female members of the Wood family ;
and her persistence in her own way caused a consider-
able alienation between herself and them. But Western
and William, though half-disapproving, remained her
friends, and lent many a helping hand to her in her
first difficult struggles. After much cogitation, she
resolved that the boy should be educated at Harrow,
where the fees are comparatively low to lads living in
the town, and that he should go thence to Cambridge
or to Oxford, as his tastes should direct. A bold
scheme for a penniless widow, but carried out to the
letter ; for never dwelt in a delicate body a more reso-
lute mind and will than that of my dear mother.

In a few months' time — during which we lived,
poorly enough, in Richmond Terrace, Clapham, close
to her father and mother — to Harrow, then, she betook
herself, into lodgings over a grocer's shop, and set her-
self to look for a house. This grocer was a very pom-
pous man, fond of long words, and patronised the
young widow exceedingly, and one day my mother
related with much amusement how he had told her
that she was sure to get on if she worked hard.
" Look at me ! " he said, swelling visibly with impor-
tance ; " I was once a poor boy, without a penny of

EARLY CHILDHOOD. 31

^^^pown, and now I am a comfortable man, and have
my submarine villa to go to every evening." That
" submarine villa " was an object of amusement when
we passed it in our walks for many a long day.

" There is Mr. 's submarine villa," some one

would say, laughing : and I, too, used to laugh
merrily, because my elders did, though my under-
standing of the difference between suburban and
submarine was on a par with that of the honest
grocer.

My mother had fortunately found a boy, whose
parents were glad to place him in her charge, of about
the age of her own son, to educate with him ; and by
this means she was able to pay for a tutor, to prepare
the two boys for school. The tutor had a cork leg,
which was a source of serious trouble to me, for it stuck
out straight behind when we knelt down to family
prayers — conduct which struck me as irreverent and
unbecoming, but which I always felt a desire to imitate.
After about a year my mother found a house which
she thought would suit her scheme, namely, to obtain
permission from Dr. Vaughan, the then head-master
of Harrow, to take some boys into her house, and so
gain means of education for her own son. Dr. Vaughan,
who must have been won by the gentle, strong, little
woman, from that time forth became her earnest friend
and helper ; and to the counsel and active assistance
both of himself and of his wife, was due much of the
success that crowned her toil. He made only one con-
dition in granting the permission she asked, and that
was, that she should also have in her house one of the

32 ANNIE BESANT.

masters of the school, so that the boys should not suffer
from the want of a house- tut or. This condition, of
course, she readily accepted, and the arrangement lasted
for ten years, until after her son had left school for
Cambridge.

The house she took is now, I am sorry to say, pulled
down, and replaced by a hideous red-brick structure.
It was very old and rambling, rose-covered in front,
ivy-covered behind ; it stood on the top of Harrow
Hill, between the church and the school, and had once
been the vicarage of the parish, but the vicar had left
it because it was so far removed from the part of the
village where all his work lay. The drawing-room
opened by an old-fashioned half-window, half-door —
which proved a constant source of grief to me, for
whenever I had on a new frock I always tore it on
the bolt as I flew through — into a large garden which
sloped down one side of the hill, and was filled with
the most delightful old trees, fir and laurel, may, mul-
berry, hazel, apple, pear, and damson, not to mention
currant and gooseberry bushes innumerable, and large
strawberry beds spreading down the sunny slopes.
There was not a tree there that I did not climb, and
one, a widespreading Portugal laurel, was my private
country house. I had there my bedroom and my
sitting-rooms, my study, and my larder. The larder
was supplied by the fruit-trees, from which I was free
to pick as I would, and in the study I would sit for
hours with some favourite book — Milton's " Paradise
Lost " the chief favourite of all. The birds must often
have felt startled, when from the small swinging form

• EARLY CHILDHOOD. 33

perching on a branch, came out in childish tones the
" Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers,"
of Milton's stately and sonorous verse. I liked to
personify Satan, and to declaim the grand speeches
of the hero-rebel, and many a happy hour did I pass
in Milton's heaven and hell, with for companions Satan
and " the Son," Gabriel and Abdiel. Then there was
a terrace running by the side of the churchyard, always
dry in the wettest weather, and bordered by an old
wooden fence, over which clambered roses of every
shade ; never was such a garden for roses as that of the
Old Vicarage. At the end of the terrace was a little
summer-house, and in this a trap-door in the fence,
which swung open and displayed one of the fairest
views in England. Sheer from your feet downwards
went the hill, and then far below stretched the wooded
country till your eye reached the towers of Windsor
Castle, far away on the horizon. It was the view at
which Byron was never tired of gazing, as he lay on
the flat tombstone close by — Byron's tomb, as it is still
called — of which he wrote : —

"Again I behold where for hours I have pondered,
As reclining, at eve, on yon tombstone I lay.
Or round the steep brow of the churchyard I wandered.
To catch the last gleam of the sun's setting ray."

Reader mine, if ever you go to Harrow, ask permis-
sion to enter the old garden, and try the effect of that
sudden burst of beauty, as you swing back the small
trap-door at the terrace end.

Into this house we moved on my eighth birthday,

3

34 ANNIE BESANT.

and for eleven years it was " home " to me, left always
with regret, returned to always with joy.

Almost immediately afterwards I left my mother for
the first time ; for one day, visiting a family who lived
close by, I found a stranger sitting in the drawing-
room, a lame lady with a strong face, which softened
marvellously as she smiled at the child who came
dancing in ; she called me to her presently, and took
me on her lap and talked to me, and on the following
day our friend came to see my mother, to ask if she
would let me go away and be educated with this lady's
niece, coming home for the holidays regularly, but
leaving my education in her hands. At first my
mother would not hear of it, for she and I scarcely
ever left each other ; my love for her was an idolatry,
hers for me a devotion. (A foolish little story, about
which I was unmercifully teased for years, marked that
absolute idolatry of her, which has not yet faded from
my heart. In tenderest rallying one day of the child
who trotted after her everywhere, content to sit, or
stand, or wait, if only she might touch hand or dress
of "mamma," she said : "Little one" (the name by
which she always called me), " if you cling to mamma
in this way, I must really get a string and tie you to
my apron, and how will you like that ? " " O mamma,
darling," came the fervent answer, " do let it be in a
knot." And, indeed, the tie of love between us was so
tightly knotted that nothing ever loosened it till the
sword of Death cut that which pain and trouble never
availed to slacken in the slightest degree.) But it was
urged upon her that the advantages of education offered

EARLY CHILDHOOD. 35

were such as no money could purchase for me j that it
would be a disadvantage for me to grow up in a house-
ful of boys — and, in truth, I was as good a cricketer
and climber as the best of them — that my mother
would soon be obliged to send me to school, unless
she accepted an offer which gave me every advantage
of school without its disadvantages. At last she yielded,
and it was decided that Miss Marryat, on returning
home, should take me with her.

Miss Marryat — the favourite sister of Captain
Marryat, the famous novelist — was a maiden lady of
large means. She had nursed her brother through the
illness that ended in his death, and had been living
with her mother at Wimbledon Park. On her mother's
death she looked round for work which would make
her useful in the world, and finding that one of her
brothers had a large family of girls, she offered to take
charge of one of them, and to educate her thoroughly.
Chancing to come to Harrow, my good fortune threw
me in her way, and she took a fancy to me and thought
she would like to teach two little girls rather than one.
Hence her offer to my mother.

Miss Marryat had a perfect genius for teaching, and
took in it the greatest delight. From time to time she
added another child to our party, sometimes a boy,
sometimes a girl. At first, with Amy Marryat and
myself, there was a little boy, Walter Powys, son of a
clergyman with a large family, and him she trained for
some years, and then sent him on to school admirably
prepared. She chose " her children " — as she loved to
call us — in very definite fashion. Each must be gently

36 ANNIE BESANT.

born and gently trained, but in such position that the
education freely given should be a relief and aid to a
slender parental purse. It was her delight to seek out
and aid those on whom poverty presses most heavily,
when the need for education for the children weighs on
the proud and the poor. " Auntie " we all called her,
for she thought " Miss Marryat " seemed too cold and
stiff. She taught us everything herself except music,
and for this she had a master, practising us in compo-
sition, in recitation, in reading aloud English and
French, and later, German, devoting herself to training
us in the soundest, most thorough fashion. No words
of mine can tell how much I owe her, not only of
knowledge, but of that love of knowledge which has
remained with me ever since as a constant spur to
study.

Her method of teaching may be of interest to some,
who desire to train children with least pain, and the
most enjoyment to the little ones themselves. First,
we never used a spelling-book — that torment of the
small child — nor an English grammar. But we wrote
letters, telling of the things we had seen in our walks,
or told again some story we had read ; these childish
compositions she would read over with us, correcting
all faults of spelling, of grammar, of style, of cadence ;
a clumsy sentence would be read aloud, that we might
hear how unmusical it sounded, an error in observation
or expression pointed out. Then, as the letters recorded
what we had seen the day before, the faculty of obser-
vation was drawn out and trained. " Oh, dear ! I have
nothing to say ! " would come from a small child.

EARLY CHILDHOOD. 37

hanging over a slate. " Did you not go out for a walk
yesterday.''" Auntie would question. "Yes," would
be sighed out ; " but there's nothing to say about
it." " Nothing to say ! And you walked in the lanes
for an hour and saw nothing, little No-eyes.'* You
must use your eyes better to-day." Then there was a
very favourite " lesson," which proved an excellent way
of teaching spelling. We used to write out lists of all
the words we could think of which sounded the same
but were differently spelt. Thus : " key, quay,"
'* knight, night," and so on, and great was the glory
of the child who found the largest number. Our
French lessons — as the German later — included reading
from the very first. On the day on which we began
German we began reading Schiller's " Wilhelm Tell,'
and the verbs given to us to copy out were those that
had occurred in the reading. We learned much by
heart, but always things that in themselves were worthy
to be learned. We were never given the dry questions
and answers which lazy teachers so much affect. We
were taught history by one reading aloud while the
others worked — the boys as well as the girls learning
the use of the needle. " It's like a girl to sew," said a
little fellow, indignantly, one day. " It is like a baby
to have to run after a girl if you want a button sewn
on," quoth Auntie. Geography was learned by painting
skeleton maps — an exercise much delighted in by small
fingers — and by putting together puzzle maps, in which
countries in the map of a continent, or counties in the
map of a country, were always cut out in their proper
shapes. I liked big empires in those days ; there was

38 ANNIE BESANT.

a solid satisfaction in putting down Russia, and seeing
what a large part of the map was filled up thereby.

The only grammar that we ever learned as grammar
was the Latin, and that not until composition had
made us familiar with the use of the rules therein given.
Auntie had a great horror of children learning by rote
things they did not understand, and then fancying they
knew them. " What do you mean by that expression,
Annie ? " she would ask me. After feeble attempts to
explain, I would answer : " Indeed, Auntie, I know in
my own head, but I can't explain." "Then, indeed,
Annie, you do not know in your own head, or you
could explain, so that I might know in my own head,"
And so a healthy habit was fostered of clearness of
thought and of expression. The Latin grammar was
used because it was more perfect than the modern
grammars, and served as a solid foundation for modern
languages.

Miss Marryat took a beautiful place. Fern Hill, near
Charmouth, in Dorsetshire, on the borders of Devon,
and there she lived for some five years, a centre of
beneficence in the district. She started a Sunday School,
and a Bible Class after awhile for the lads too old for
the school, who clamoured for admission to her class in
v<t«> it. She visited the poor, taking help wherever she
went, and sending food from her own table to the sick.
It was characteristic of her that she would never give
" scraps " to the poor, but would have a basin brought
in at dinner, and would cut the best slice to tempt the
invalid appetite. Money she rarely, if ever, gave, but
she would find a day's work, or busy herself to seek

EARLY CHILDHOOD. 39

permanent employment for any one seeking aid. Stern
in rectitude herself, and iron to the fawning or the
dishonest, her influence, whether she was feared or
loved, was always for good. Of the strictest sect of
the Evangelicals, she was an Evangelical. On the
Sunday no books were allowed save the Bible or
the " Sunday at Home " ; but she would try to make
the day bright by various little devices ; by a walk
with her in the garden; by the singing of hymns,
always attractive to children ; by telling us wonderful
missionary stories of Moifat and Livingstone, whose
adventures with savages and wild beasts were as exciting
as any tale of Mayne Reid's. We used to learn passages
from the Bible and hymns for repetition ; a favourite
amusement was a " Bible puzzle," such as a description
of some Bible scene, which was to be recognised by the
description. Then we taught in the Sunday School,
for Auntie would tell us that it was useless for us to
learn if we did not try to help those who had no one
to teach them. The Sunday-school lessons had to be
carefully prepared on the Saturday, for we were always
taught that work given to the poor should be work
that cost something to the giver. This principle,
regarded by her as an illustration of the text, " Shall I
give unto the Lord my God that which has cost me
nothing ? " ran through all her precept and her practice.
When in some public distress we children went to her
crying, and asking whether we could not help the little
children who were starving, her prompt reply was,
" What will you give up for them ^ " And then she
said that if we liked to give up the use of sugar, we

40 ANNIE BESANT.

might thus each save sixpence a week to give away. I
doubt if a healthier lesson can be given to children than
that of personal self-denial for the good of others.

Daily, when our lessons were over, we had plenty of
fun; long walks and rides, rides on a lovely pony, who
found small children most amusing, and on which the
coachman taught us to stick firmly, whatever his eccen-
tricities of the moment ; delightful all-day picnics in
the lovely country round Charmouth, Auntie our
merriest playfellow. Never was a healthier home,
physically and mentally, made for young things than
in that quiet village. And then the delight of the
holidays ! The pride of my mother at the good report
of her darling's progress, and the renewal of acquain-
tance with every nook and corner in the dear old house
and garden.

The dreamy tendency in the child, that on its worldly
side is fancy, imagination, on its religious side is the
germ of mysticism, and I believe it to be far more
common than many people think. But the remorseless
materialism of the day — not the philosophic materialism
of the feWf but the religious materialism of the many —
crushes out all the delicate buddings forth of the childish
thought, and bandages the eyes that might otherwise
see. At first the child does not distinguish between
what it "sees" and what it "fancies"; the one is as
real, as objective, to it as the other, and it will talk to
and play with its dream-comrades as merrily as with
children like itself. As a child, I myself very much
preferred the former, and never knew what it was to
be lonely. But clumsy grown-ups come along and

EARLY CHILDHOOD. 41

tramp right through the dream-garden, and crush the
dream-flowers, and push the dream-children aside, and
then say, in their loud, harsh voices — not soft and
singable like the dream-voices — " You must not tell
such naughty stories, Miss Annie ; you give me the
shivers, and your mamma will be very vexed with you."
But this tendency in me was too strong to be stifled,
and it found its food in the fairy tales I loved, and in
the religious allegories that I found yet more entrancing.
How or when I learned to read, I do not know, for I
cannot remember the time when a book was not a
dehght. At five years of age I must have read easily,
for I remember being often unswathed from a delight-
ful curtain, in which 1 used to roll myself with a book,
and told to "go and play," while I was still a five-
years'-old dot. And I had a habit of losing myself so
completely in the book that my name might be called
in the room where I was, and I never hear it, so that I
used to be blamed for wilfully hiding myself, when I
had simply been away in fairyland, or lying trembling
beneath some fi-iendly cabbage-leaf as a giant went by.
I was between seven and eight years of age when I
first came across some children's allegories of a religious
kind, and a very little later came " Pilgrim's Progress,"
and Milton's " Paradise Lost." Thenceforth my busy
fancies carried me ever into the fascinating world where
boy-soldiers kept some outpost for their absent Prince,
bearing a shield with his sign of a red cross on it ;
where devils shaped as dragons came swooping down
on the pilgrim, but were driven away defeated aft:er
hard struggle; where angels came and talked with

42 ANNIE BESANT.

little children, and gave them some talisman which
warned them of coming danger, and lost its light if
they were leaving the right path. What a dull, tire-
some world it was that I had to live in, I used to think
to myself, when I was told to be a good child, and not
to lose my temper, and to be tidy, and not mess my
pinafore at dinner. How much easier to be a Chris-
tian if one could have a red-cross shield and a white
banner, and have a real devil to fight with, and a
beautiful Divine Prince to smile at you when the battle
was over. How much more exciting to struggle with
a winged and clawed dragon that you knew meant
mischief, than to look after your temper, that you
never remembered you ought to keep until you had
lost it. If I had been Eve in the garden, that old
serpent would never have got the better of me ; but
how was a little girl to know that she might not pick
out the rosiest, prettiest apple from a tree that had no
serpent to show it was a forbidden one ? And as I
grew older the dreams and fancies grew less fantastic,
but more tinged with real enthusiasm. I read tales of
the early Christian martyrs, and passionately regretted
I was born so late when no suffering for religion was
practicable ; I would spend many an hour in day-
dreams, in which I stood before Roman judges, before
Dominican Inquisitors, was flung to lions, tortured on
the rack, burned at the stake ; one day I saw myself
preaching some great new faith to a vast crowd of
people, and they listened and were converted, and I
became a great religious leader. But always, with a
shock, I was brought back to earth, where there were

EARLY CHILDHOOD. 43

no heroic deeds to do, no lions to face, no judges to
defy, but only some dull duty to be performed. And
I used to fret that I was born so late, when all the
grand things had been done, and when there was no
chance of preaching and suffering for a new religion.

From the age of eight my education accented
the religious side of my character. Under Miss
Marryat's training my religious feeling received a
strongly Evangelical bent, but it was a subject of
some distress to me that I could never look back
to an hour of " conversion '* ; when others gave their
experiences, and spoke of the sudden change they
had felt, I used to be sadly conscious that no such
change had occurred in me, and I felt that my dreamy
longings were very poor things compared with the
vigorous " sense of sin " spoken of by the preachers,
and used dolefully to wonder if I were "saved." Then
I had an uneasy sense that I was often praised for my
piety when emulation and vanity were more to the
front than religion ; as when I learned by heart the
Epistle of James, far more to distinguish myself for my
good memory than from any love of the text itself ;
the sonorous cadences of many parts of the Old and
New Testaments pleased my ear, and I took a dreamy
pleasure in repeating them aloud, just as I would recite
for my own amusement hundreds of lines of Milton's
" Paradise Lost," as I sat swinging on some branch of
a tree, lying back often on some swaying bough and
gazing into the unfathomable blue of the sky, till I
lost myself in an ecstasy of sound and colour, half
chanting the melodious sentences and peopling all the

44 ANNIE BESANT.

blue with misty forms. This facility of learning by
heart, and the habit of dreamy recitation, made me
very familiar with the Bible and very apt with its
phrases. This stood me in good stead at the prayer-
meetings dear to the Evangelical, in which we all took
part ; in turn we were called on to pray aloud — a
terrible ordeal to me, for I was painfully shy when
attention was called to me ; I used to suffer agonies
while I waited for the dreaded words, " Now, Annie
dear, will you speak to our Lord." But when my
trembling lips had forced themselves into speech,
all the nervousness used to vanish and I was swept
away by an enthusiasm that readily clothed itself
in balanced sentences, and alack ! at the end, I too
often hoped that God and Auntie had noticed that
I prayed very nicely — a vanity certainly not in-
tended to be fostered by the pious exercise. On
the whole, the somewhat Calvinistic teaching tended,
I think, to make me a little morbid, especially as I
always fretted silently after my mother. I remember
she was surprised on one of my home-comings, when
Miss Marryat noted " cheerfiilness " as a want in my
character, for at home I was ever the blithest of
children, despite my love of solitude ; but away, there
was always an aching for home, and the stern religion
cast somewhat of a shadow over me, though, strangely
enough, hell never came into my dreamings except in
the interesting shape it took in " Paradise Lost."
After reading that, the devil was to me no horned and
hoofed horror, but the beautiful shadowed archangel,
and I always hoped that Jesus, my ideal Prince, would

EARLY CHILDHOOD. 45

save him in the end. The things that really frightened
me were vague, misty presences that I felt were near,
but could not see ; they were so real that I knew just
where they were in the room, and the peculiar terror
they excited lay largely in the feeling that I was just
going to see them. If by chance I came across a
ghost story it haunted me for months, for I saw what-
ever unpleasant spectre was described ; and there was
one horrid old woman in a tale by Sir Walter Scott,
who glided up to the foot of your bed and sprang on
it in some eerie fashion and glared at you, and who
made my going to bed a terror to me for many weeks.
I can still recall the feeling so vividly that it almost
frightens me now !

CHAPTER 111.

GIRLHOOD.

IN the spring of 1861 Miss Marry at announced her
intention of going abroad, and asked my dear
mother to let me accompany her. A little nephew
whom she had adopted was suffering from cataract,
and she desired to place him under the care of the
famous Diisseldorf oculist. Amy Marryat had been
recalled home soon after the death of her mother, who
had died in giving birth to the child adopted by Miss
Marryat, and named at her desire after her favourite
brother Frederick (Captain Marryat). Her place had
been taken by a girl a few months older than myself,
Emma Mann, one of the daughters of a clergyman, who
had married Miss Stanley, closely related, indeed, if I
remember rightly, a sister of the Miss Mary Stanley
who did such noble work in nursing in the Crimea.
For some months we had been diligently studying
German, for Miss Marryat thought it wise that we
should know a language fairly well before we visited
the country of which it was the native tongue. We
had been trained also to talk French daily during
dinner, so we were not quite " helpless foreigners "

48 ANNIE BESANT.

when we steamed away from St. Catherine's Docks, and
found ourselves on the following day in Antwerp,
amid what seemed to us a very Babel of conflicting
tongues. Alas for our carefully spoken French,
articulated laboriously ! We were lost in that swirl of
disputing luggage-porters, and could not understand a
word ! But Miss Marryat was quite equal to the
occasion, being by no means new to travelling, and
her French stood the test triumphantly, and steered
us safely to a hotel. On the morrow we started again
through Aix-la-Chapelle to Bonn, the town which lies
on the borders of the exquisite scenery of which the
Siebengebirge and Rolandseck serve as the magic
portal. Our experiences in Bonn were not wholly
satisfactory. Dear Auntie was a maiden lady, looking
on all young men as wolves to be kept far from her
growing lambs. Bonn was a university town, and
there was a mania just then prevailing there for all
things English. Emma was a plump, rosy, fair-haired
typical English maiden, full of frolic and harmless
fun ; I a very slight, pale, black-haired girl, alternating
between wild fun and extreme pensiveness. In the
boarding-house to which we went at first — the " Chateau
du Rhin," a beautiful place overhanging the broad,
blue Rhine — there chanced to be staying the two sons
of the late Duke of Hamilton, the Marquis of Douglas
and Lord Charles, with their tutor. They had the
whole drawing-room floor : we a sitting-room on the
ground floor and bedrooms above. The lads dis-
covered that Miss Marryat did not like her " children "
to be on speaking terms with any of the " male sect."

GIRLHOOD. 49

Here was a fine source of amusement. They would
make their horses caracole on the gravel in front of
our window ; they would be just starting for their ride
as we went for walk or drive, and would salute us with
doffed hat and low bow ; they would waylay us on our
way downstairs with demure " Good morning " ; they
would go to church and post themselves so that they
could survey our pew, and Lord Charles — who
possessed the power of moving at will the whole skin
of the scalp — would "wriggle his hair up and down till
we were choking with laughter, to our own imminent
risk. After a month of this Auntie was literally
driven out of the pretty chateau, and took refuge in
a girls' school, much to our disgust ; but still she was
not allowed to be at rest. Mischievous students
would pursue us wherever we went ; sentimental
Germans, with gashed cheeks, would whisper compli-
mentary phrases as we passed ; mere boyish nonsense
of most harmless kind, but the rather stern English
lady thought it " not proper," and after three months
of Bonn we were sent home for the holidays, somewhat
in disgrace. But we had some lovely excursions during
those months ; such clambering up mountains, such
rows on the swift-flowing Rhine, such wanderings in
exquisite valleys. I have a long picture-gallery to
retire into when I want to think of something fair, in
recalling the moon as it silvered the Rhine at the foot
of Drachenfels, or the soft, mist-veiled island where
dwelt the lady who is consecrated for ever by Roland's
love.

A couple of months later we rejoined Miss Marryat

4

50 ANNIE BESANT.

in Paris, where we spent seven happy, workful months.
On Wednesdays and Saturdays we were free from
lessons, and many a long afternoon was passed in the
galleries of the Louvre, till we became familiar with
the masterpieces of art gathered there from all lands,
I doubt if there v/as a beautiful church in Paris
that we did not visit during those weekly wander-
ings ; that of St. Germain de I'Auxerrois was my
favourite — the church whose bell gave the signal for
the massacre of St. Bartholomew — for it contained
such marvellous stained glass, deepest, purest glory
of colour that I had ever seen. The solemn beauty
of Notre Dame, the somewhat gaudy magnificence of
La Sainte Chapelle, the stateliness of La Madeleine,
the impressive gloom of St. Roch, were all familiar
to us. Other delights were found in mingling with
the bright crowds which passed along the Champs
Elysees and sauntered in the Bois de Boulogne, in
strolling in the garden of the Tuileries, in climbing
to the top of every monument whence view of Paris
could be gained. The Empire was then in its heyday
of glitter, and we much enjoyed seeing the brilliant
escort of the imperial carriage, with plumes and gold
and silver dancing and glistening in the sunlight, while
in the carriage sat the exquisitely lovely empress, with
the little boy beside her, touching his cap shyly, but
with something of her own grace, in answer to a greet-
ing— the boy who was thought to be born to an
imperial crown, but whose brief career was to find an
ending from the spears of savages in a quarrel in which
he had no concern.

GIRLHOOD. 51

In the spring of 1862 it chanced that the Bishop
of Ohio visited Paris, and Mr. Forbes, then English
chaplain at the Church of the Rue d'Aguesseau,
arranged to have a confirmation. As said above,
I was under deep "religious impressions," and, in
fact, with the exception of that little aberration in
Germany, I was decidedly a pious girl. I looked on
theatres (never having been to one) as traps set by
Satan for the destruction of foolish souls ; I was quite
determined never to go to a ball, and was prepared to
*' suffer for conscience' sake " — little prig that I was —
if I was desired to go to one. I was consequently
quite prepared to take upon myself the vows made in
my name at my baptism, and to renounce the world,
the flesh, and the devil, with a heartiness and sincerity
only equalled by my profound ignorance of the things
I so readily resigned. That confirmation was to me a
very solemn matter ; the careful preparation, the pro-
longed prayers, the wondering awe as to the " seven-
fold gifts of the Spirit," which were to be given by
" the laying on of hands," all tended to excitement. I
could scarcely control myself as I knelt at the altar
rails, and felt as though the. gentle touch of the aged
bishop, which fluttered for an instant on my bowed
head, were the very touch of the wing of that '* Holy
Spirit, heavenly Dove," whose presence had been so
earnestly invoked. Is there anything easier, I wonder,
than to make a young and sensitive girl *' intensely
religious " ?

This stay in Paris roused into activity an aspect of
my religious nature that had hitherto been latent. I

52 ANNIE BESANT.

discovered the sensuous enjoyment that lay in intro-
ducing colour and fragrance and pomp into religious
services, so that the gratification of the assthetic emo-
tions became dignified with the garb of piety. The
picture-galleries of the Louvre, crowded with Madonnas
and saints, the Roman Cathohc churches with their
incense-laden air and exquisite music, brought a new
joy into my life, a more vivid colour to my dreams.
Insensibly, the colder, cruder Evangelicalism that I had
never thoroughly assimilated, grew warmer and more
brilliant, and the ideal Divine Prince of my childhood
took on the more pathetic lineaments of the Man of
Sorrows, the deeper attractiveness of the suffering
Saviour of Men. Kcble's " Christian Year " took the
place of " Paradise Lost," and as my girlhood began
to bud towards womanhood, all its deeper currents set
in the direction of religious devotion. My mother
did not allow me to read love stories, and my day-
dreams of the future were scarcely touched by any of
the ordinary hopes and fears of a girl lifting her eyes
towards the world she is shortly to enter. They were
filled with broodings over the days when girl-martyrs
were blessed with visions of the King of Martyrs, when
sweet St. Agnes saw her celestial Bridegroom, and
angels stooped to whisper melodies in St. Cecilia's
raptured ear. " Why then and not now ? " my heart
would question, and I would lose myself in these fancies,
never happier than when alone.

The summer of 1862 was spent with Miss Marryat
at Sidmouth, and, wise woman that she was, she now
carefully directed our studies with a view to our coming

GIRLHOOD. 53

enfranchisement from the " schoolroom." More and
more were we trained to work alone ; our leading-
strings were slackened, so that we never felt them save
when we blundered ; and I remember that when I once
complained, in loving fashion, that she was *' teaching
me so little," she told me that I was getting old enough
to be trusted to work by myself, and that I must not
expect to " have Auntie for a crutch all through life."
And I venture to say that this gentle withdrawal of
constant supervision and teaching was one of the wisest
and kindest things that this noble-hearted woman ever
did for us. It is the usual custom to keep girls in the
schoolroom until they " come out " ; then, suddenly,
they are left to their own devices, and, bewildered by
their unaccustomed freedom, they waste time that
might be priceless for their intellectual growth. Lately,
the opening of universities to women has removed this
danger for the more ambitious ; but at the time of
which I am writing no one dreamed of the changes
soon to be made in the direction of the "higher
education of women."

During the winter of 1862-63 Miss Marryat was
in London, and for a few months I remained there
with her, attending the admirable French classes of
M. Roche. In the spring I returned home to Harrow,
going up each week to the classes ; and when these
were over. Auntie told me that she thought all she
could usefully do was done, and that it was time that
I should try my wings alone. So well, however, had
she succeeded in her aims, that my emancipation from
the schoolroom was but the starting-point of more

54 ANNIE BESANT.

eager study, though now the study turned Into the
lines of thought towards which my personal tendencies
most attracted me. German I continued to read with
a master, and music, under the marvellously able teach-
ing of Mr. John Farmer, musical director of Harrow
School, took up much of my time. My dear mother
had a passion for music, and Beethoven and Bach were
her favourite composers. There was scarcely a sonata
of Beethoven's that I did not learn, scarcely a fugue of
Bach's that I did not master. Mendelssohn's " Lieder "
gave a lighter recreation, and many a happy evening
did we spend, my mother and I, over the stately strains
of the blind Titan, and the sweet melodies of the
German wordless orator. Musical ^' At Homes," too,
were favourite amusements at Harrow, and at these my
facile fingers made me a welcome guest.

Thus set free from the schoolroom at 16^5, an only
daughter, I could do with my time as I would, save
for the couple of hours a day given to music, for
the satisfaction of my mother. From then till I
became engaged, just before I was 19, my life flowed
on smoothly, one current visible to all and dancing
in the sunlight, the other running underground, but
full and deep and strong. As regards my outer life,
no girl had a brighter, happier life than mine ;
studying all the mornings and most of the after-
noons in my own way, and spending the latter part
of the day in games and walks and rides — varied with
parties at which I was one of the merriest of guests.
I practised archery so zealously that I carried up
triumphantly as prize for the best score the first

GIRLHOOD. 55

ring I ever possessed, while croquet found me a most
eager devotee. My darling mother certainly "spoiled"
me, so far as were concerned all the small roughnesses
of life. She never allov/ed a trouble of any kind
to touch me, and cared only that all worries should
fall on her, all joys on me. I know now what I never
dreamed then, that her life was one of serious anxiety.
The heavy burden of my brother's school and college
life pressed on her constantly, and her need of money
was often serious. A lawyer whom she trusted abso-
lutely cheated her systematically, using for his own
purposes the remittances she made for payment of
liabilities, thus keeping upon her a constant drain.
Yet for me all that was wanted was ever there. Was
it a ball to which we were going .? I need never think
of what I would wear till the time for dressing arrived,
and there laid out ready for me was all I wanted, every
detail complete from top to toe. No hand but hers
must dress my hair, which, loosed, fell in dense curly
masses nearly to my knees ; no hand but hers must
fasten dress and deck with flowers, and if I sometimes
would coaxingly ask if I might not help by sewing in
laces, or by doing some trifle in aid, she would kiss me
and bid me run to my books or my play, telling me
that her only pleasure in life was caring for her
" treasure." Alas ! how lightly we take the self-
denying labour that makes life so easy, ere yet we have
known what life means when the protecting mother-
wing is withdrawn. So guarded and shielded had
been my childhood and youth from every touch of
pain and anxiety that love could bear for me, that I

56 ANNIE BESANT.

never dreamed that life might be a heavy burden, save
as I saw it in the poor I was sent to help ; all the joy
of those happy years I took, not ungratefully I hope,
but certainly with as glad unconsciousness of anything
rare in it as I took the sunlight. Passionate love,
indeed, I gave to my darling, but I never knew all
I owed her till I passed out of her tender guardian-
ship, till I left my mother's home. Is such training
wise ? I am not sure. It makes the ordinary rough-
nesses of life come with so stunning a shock, when
one goes out into the world, that one is apt to question
whether some earlier initiation into life's sterner mys-
teries would not be wiser for the young. Yet it is
a fair thing to have that joyous youth to look back
upon, and at least it is a treasury of memory that
no thief can steal in the struggles of later life.
" Sunshine " they called me in those bright days of
merry play and earnest study. But that study showed
the bent of my thought and linked itself to the hidden
life ; for the Fathers of the early Christian Church now
became my chief companions, and I pored over the
Shepherd of Hermas, the Epistles of Polycarp, Bar-
nabas, Ignatius, and Clement, the commentaries of
Chrysostom, the confessions of Augustine. With
these I studied the writings of Pusey, Liddon, and
Keble, with many another smaller light, joying in
the great conception of a Catholic Church, lasting
through the centuries, built on the foundations of
apostles and of martyrs, stretching from the days
of Christ Himself down to our own — " One Lord,
one Faith one Baptism," and I myself a child of

GIRLHOOD. 57

that Holy Church. The hidden life grew stronger,
constantly fed by these streams of study ; weekly
communion became the centre round which my de-
votional life revolved, with its ecstatic meditation,
its growing intensity of conscious contact with the
Divine ; I fasted, according to the ordinances of the
Church ; occasionally flagellated myself to see if
I could bear physical pain, should I be fortunate
enough ever to tread the pathway trodden by the
saints ; and ever the Christ was the figure round
which clustered all my hopes and longings, till I
often felt that the very passion of my devotion
would draw Him down from His throne in heaven,
present visibly in form as I felt Him invisibly in
spirit. To serve Him through His Church became
more and more a definite ideal in my life, and my
thoughts began to turn towards some kind of
" religious life," in which I might prove my love
by sacrifice and turn my passionate gratitude into
active service.

Looking back to-day over my life, I see that its
keynote — through all the blunders, and the blind
mistakes, and clumsy follies — has been this longing
for sacrifice to something felt as greater than the self.
It has been so strong and so persistent that I recognise
it now as a tendency brought over from a previous life
and dominating the present one ; and this is shown by
the fact that to follow it is not the act of a deliberate
and conscious will, forcing self into submission and
giving up with pain something the heart desires, but
the following it is a joyous springing forward along

58 ANNIE BESANT.

the easiest path, the " sacrifice " being the supremely
attractive thing, not to make which would.be to deny
the deepest longings of the soul, and to feel oneself
polluted and dishonoured. And it is here that the mis-
judgment comes in of many generous hearts who have
spoken sometimes lately so strongly in my praise. For
the efForts to serve have not been painful acts of self-
denial, but the yielding to an overmastering desire.
We do not praise the mother who, impelled by
her protecting love, feeds her crying infant and stills
its wailings at her breast ; rather should we blame her
if she turned aside from its weeping to play with some
toy. And so with all those whose ears are opened to
the wailings of the great orphan Humanity ; they are
less to be praised for helping than they would be to be
blamed if they stood aside. I now know that it is
those wailings that have stirred my heart through
life, and that I brought with me the ears open to
hear them from previous lives of service paid to men.
It was those lives that drew for the child the alluring
pictures of martyrdom, breathed into the girl the
passion of devotion, sent the woman out to face
scoff and odium, and drove her finally into the
Theosophy that rationalises sacrifice, while opening
up possibilities of service beside which all other
hopes grow pale.

The Easter of 1866 was a memorable date in my
life. I was introduced to the clergyman I married,
and I met and conquered my first religious doubt.
A little mission church had been opened the pre-
ceding Christmas in a very poor district of Clapham.

GIRLHOOD. 59

My grandfather's house was near at hand, in Albert
Square, and a favourite aunt and myself devoted our-
selves a good deal to this little church, as enthusiastic
girls and women will. At Easter we decorated it with
spring flowers, with dewy primroses and fragrant
violets, and with the yellow bells of the wild daffodil,
to the huge delight of the poor who crowded in,
and of the little London children who had, many
of them, never seen a flower. Here I met the Rev.
Frank Besant, a young Cambridge man, who had
just taken orders, and was serving the little mission
church as deacon ; strange that at the same time I
should meet the man I was to marry, and the doubts
which were to break the marriage tie. For in the
Holy Week preceding that Easter Eve, I had been
— as English and Roman Catholics are wont to do —
trying to throw the mind back to the time when
the commemorated events occurred, and to follow,
step by step, the last days of the Son of Man,
living, as it were, through those last hours, so that
I might be ready to kneel before the cross on Good
Friday, to stand beside the sepulchre on Easter Day.
In order to facilitate the realisation of those last sacred
days of God incarnate on earth, working out man's
salvation, I resolved to write a brief history of that
week, compiled from the Four Gospels, meaning them
to try and realise each day the occurrences that had
happened on the corresponding date in a.d. 23i ^i^d
so to follow those *' blessed feet " step by step, till
they were

"... nailed for our advantage to the bitter cross."

6o

ANNIE BESANT.

With the fearlessness which springs from ignorance
I sat down to my task. My method was as
follows : —

MATTHEW.

Palm Sunday.

Rode into Je-
rusalem. Puri-
fied the Temple.
Returned to
Bethany.

Monday.

Cursed the fig-
tree. Taught in
the Temple, and
spake many par-
ables. No breaks
shown, but the
fig-tree (xxi. 19)
did not wither
till Tuesday (see
Mark).

Tuesday.

All chaps, xxi.
20, xxii. - XXV.,
spoken on Tues-
day, for xxvi. 2
gives Passover as
"after two days."

Wednesday.
Blank.

MARK.

Palm Sunday.

Rode into Je-
rusalem. Re-
turned to Beth-
any.

Monday.

Cursed the fig-
tree. Purified
the Temple.
Went out of
city.

Tuesday.

Saw fig-tree
withered up.
Then discourses.

LUKE.

Palm Sunday.

Rode into Je-
rusalem. Puri-
fied the Temple.
Note : " Taught
daily in the
Temple."

Monday.
Like Matthew.

Tuesday.

Disc our ses.
No date shown.

Wednesday.

(Possibly remain [ed in Bethany;

Wednesday.

the alabaster box

JOHN.

Palm Sunday.

Rode into Je-
rusalem. Spoke
in the Temple.

Monday

Tuesday.

Wednesday.

of ointment.)

GIRLHOOD.

6i

MATTHEW.

Thursday.

Preparation of
Passover. Eat-
ing of Passover,
and institution
of the Holy Eu-
charist. Gethse-
mane. Betrayal
by Judas. Led
captive to Caia-
phas. Denied by
St. Peter.

Friday.
Led to Pilate.

MARK.

Thursday.
Same as Matt.

Friday.
As Matthew,

Judas hangsjbut hour of cru-
himself. Tried, cifixion given, 9
Condemned to a.m.
death. Scourged
and mocked.
Led to cruci-
fixion. Dark-
ness from 12 to 3.
Died at 3.

LUKE.

Thursday.
Same as Matt.

Friday.

Led to Pilate.
Sent to Herod.
Sent back to
Pilate. Rest as
in Matthew; but
one malefactor
repents.

JOHN.

Thursday.

Discourses
with disciples,
but before the
Passover.
Washes the dis-
c i p 1 e s' f e e t.
Nothing said of
Holy Eucharist,
nor of agony in
Gethsemane.
Malchus' ear.
Led captive to
Annas first.
Then to Caia-
phas. Denied
by St. Peter.

Friday.
Taken to
Pilate. Jews
would not en-
ter, that they
might eat the
Passover.
Scourged by Pi-
late before con-
demnation, and
mocked. Shown
by Pilate to
Jews at 12.

I became uneasy as I proceeded with my task, for
discrepancies leaped at me from my four columns ;
the uneasiness grew as the contradictions increased,
until I saw with a shock of horror that my "harmony"
was a discord, and a doubt of the veracity of the story
sprang up like a serpent hissing in my face. It was

62 ANNIE BESANT.

struck down in a moment, for to me to doubt was sin,
and to have doubted on the very eve of the Passion
was an added crime. Quickly I assured myself that
these apparent contradictions were necessary as tests of
faith, and I forced myself to repeat Tertullian's famous
" Credo quia impossibile," till, from a wooden recital, it
became a triumphant affirmation. I reminded myself
that St. Peter had said of the Pauline Epistles that in
them were "some things hard to be understood, which
they that are unlearned and unstable wrest . . . unto
their own destruction." I shudderingly recognised that
I must be very unlearned and unstable to find discord
among the Holy Evangelists, and imposed on myself
an extra fast as penance for my ignorance and lack of
firmness in the faith. For my mental position was one
to which doubt was one of the worst of sins. I knew
that there were people like Colenso, who questioned
the infallibility of the Bible, but I remembered how
the Apostle John had fled from the Baths when
Cerinthus entered them, lest the roof should fall
on the heretic, and crush any one in his neighbour-
hood, and I looked on all heretics with holy horror.
Pusey had indoctrinated me with his stern hatred of
all heresy, and I was content to rest with him on
that faith, " which must be old because it is eternal,
and must be unchangeable because it is true." I
would not even read the works of my mothers
favourite Stanley, because he was " unsound," and
because Pusey had condemned his " variegated use
of words which destroys all definiteness of meaning "
— a clever and pointed description, be it said in

wf.

GIRLHOOD. 63

^passing, of the Dean's exquisite phrases, capable of
so many readings. It can then be imagined with what
a stab of pain this first doubt struck me, and with
what haste I smothered it up, buried it, and smoothed
the turf over its grave. Bui it had been there^ and
it left its mark.

CHAPTER IV.

MARRIAGE.

THE last year of my girlish freedom was drawing
to its close ; how shall I hope to make common-
sense readers understand how I became betrothed maiden
ere yet nineteen, girl-wife when twenty years had struck ?
Looking back over twenty-five years, I feel a profound
pity for the girl standing at that critical point of life, so
utterly, hopelessly ignorant of all that marriage meant,
so filled with impossible dreams, so unfitted for the
role of wife. As I have said, my day-dreams held
little place for love, partly from the absence of love
novels from my reading, partly from the mystic fancies
that twined themselves round the figure of the Christ.
Catholic books of devotion — English or Roman, it
matters not, for to a large extent they are translations
of the same hymns and prayers — are exceedingly glow-
ing in their language, and the dawning feelings of
womanhood unconsciously lend to them a passionate
fervour, I longed to spend my time in worshipping
Jesus, and was, as far as my inner life was concerned,

S

eb ANNIE BESANT.

absorbed in that passionate love of " the Saviour "
which, among emotional Catholics, really is the human
passion of love transferred to an ideal — for women to
Jesus, for men to the Virgin Mary. In order to show
that I am not here exaggerating, I subjoin a few
of the prayers in which I found daily delight, and
I do this in order to show how an emotional girl
may be attracted by these so-called devotional exer-
cises : —

" O crucified Love, raise in me fresh ardours of love
and consolation, that it may henceforth be the greatest
torment I can endure ever to offend Thee ; that it may
be my greatest delight to please Thee."

" Let the remembrance of Thy death, O Lord Jesu,
make me to desire and pant after Thee, that I may
delight in Thy gracious presence."

" O most sweet Jesu Christ, I, unworthy sinner, yet
redeemed by Thy precious blood. . . . Thine I am
and will be, in life and in death."

" O Jesu, beloved, fairer than the sons of men, draw
me after Thee with the cords of Thy love ."

" Blessed are Thou, O most merciful God, who didst
vouchsafe to espouse me to the heavenly Bridegroom
in the waters of baptism, and hast imparted Thy body
and blood as a new gift of espousal and the meet con-
summation of Thy love."

" O most sweet Lord Jesu, transfix the affections of
my inmost soul with that most joyous and most health-
ful wound of Thy love, with true, serene, most holy,
apostolical charity ; that my soul may ever languish
and melt with entire love and longing for Thee. Let

MARRIAGE. 6y

it desire Thee and faint for Thy courts ; long to be
dissolved and be with Thee."

" Oh, that I could embrace Thee with that most
burning love of angels."

" Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth ;
for Thy love is better than wine. Draw me, we will
run after Thee. The king hath brought me into his
chambers. . . . Let my soul, O Lord, feel the sweet-
ness of Thy presence. May it taste how sweet Thou
art. . . . May the sweet and burning power of Thy
love, I beseech Thee, absorb my soul."

All girls have in them the germ of passion, and the
line of its development depends on the character brought
into the world, and the surrounding influences of edu-
cation. I had but two ideals in my childhood and
youth, round whom twined these budding tendrils of
passion ; they were my mother and the Christ. I
know this may seem strange, but I am trying to
state things as they were in this life-story, and not
give mere conventionalisms, and so it was. I had men
friends, but no lovers — at least, to my knowledge, for
I have since heard that my mother received two or
three offers of marriage for me, but declined them on
account of my youth and my childishness — friends with
whom I liked to talk, because they knew more than I
did ; but they had no place in my day-dreams. These
were more and more filled with the one Ideal Man,
and my hopes turned towards the life of the Sister of
Mercy, who ever worships the Christ, and devotes her
life to the service of His poor. I knew my dear
mother would set herself against this idea, but it

68 ANNIE BESANT.

nestled warm at my heart, for ever that idea of
escaping from the humdrum of ordinary life by some
complete sacrifice lured me onwards with its over-
mastering fascination.

Now one unlucky result of this view of religion is
the idealisation of the clergyman, the special messenger
and chosen servant of the Lord. Far more lofty than
any title bestowed by earthly monarch is that patent
of nobility straight from the hand of the " King of
kings," that seems to give to the mortal something
of the authority of the immortal, and to crown the
head of the priest with the diadem that belongs to
those who are " kings and priests unto God." Viewed
in this way, the position of the priest's wife seems
second only to that of the nun, and has, therefore, a
wonderfial attractiveness, an attractiveness in which the
particular clergyman affected plays a very subordinate
part ; it is the " sacred office," the nearness to " holy
things," the consecration which seems to include the
wife — it is these things that shed a glamour over the
clerical life which attracts most those who are most apt
to self-devotion, most swayed by imagination. And
the saddest pity of all this is that the glamour is most
over those whose brains are quick, whose hearts are
pure, who are responsive to all forms of noble emotions,
all suggestions of personal self-sacrifice ; if such in later
life rise to the higher emotions whose shadows have
attracted them, and to that higher self-sacrifice whose
whispers reached them in their early youth, then the
false prophet's veil is raised, the poverty of the concep-
tion seen, and the life is either wrecked, or through

F

^^orm-wirii

MARRIAGE. 69

torm-wind and surge of battling billows, with loss
of mast and sail, is steered by firm hand into the port
of a nobler faith.

That summer of 1866 saw me engaged to the young
clergyman I had met at the mission church in the
spring, our knowledge of each other being an almost
negligeable quantity. We were thrown together for a
week, the only two young ones in a small party of
holiday-makers, and in our walks, rides, and drives we
were naturally companions ; an hour or two before he
left he asked me to marry him, taking my consent for
granted as I had allowed him such full companionship
— a perfectly fair assumption with girls accustomed to
look on all men as possible husbands, but wholly mis-
taken as regarded myself, whose thoughts were in quite
other directions. Startled, and my sensitive pride
touched by what seemed to my strict views an assump-
tion that I had been flirting, I hesitated, did not follow
my first impulse of refusal, but took refuge in silence ;
my suitor had to catch his train, and bound me over to
silence till he could himself speak to my mother, urging
authoritatively that it would be dishonourable of me to
break his confidence, and left me — the most upset and
distressed little person on the Sussex coast. The fort-
night that followed was the first unhappy one of my
life, for I had a secret from my mother, a secret which
I passionately longed to tell her, but dared not speak at
the risk of doing a dishonourable thing. On meeting
my suitor on our return to town I positively refused to
keep silence any longer, and then out of sheer weakness
and fear of inflicting pain I drifted into an engagement

70 ANNIE BESANT.

with a man I did not pretend to love. " Drifted " is
the right word, for two or three months passed, on the
ground that I was so much of a child, before my mother
would consent to a definite engagement ; my disHke of
the thought of marriage faded before the idea of be-
coming the wife of a priest, working ever in the Church
and among the poor. I had no outlet for my growing
desire for usefulness in my happy and peacefial home-
life, where all religious enthusiasm was regarded as un-
balanced and unbecoming ; all that was deepest and
truest in my nature chafed against my easy, useless
days, longed for work, yearned to devote itself, as I
had read women saints had done, to the service of the
Church and of the poor, to the battling against sin and
misery — what empty names sin and misery then were
to me ! " You will have more opportunities for doing
good as a clergyman's wife than as anything else," was
one of the pleas urged on my reluctance.

In the autumn I was definitely betrothed, and I
married fourteen months later. Once, in the interval,
I tried to break the engagement, but, on my broaching
the subject to my mother, all her pride rose up in revolt.
Would I, her daughter, break my word, would I dis-
honour myself by jilting a man I had pledged myself
to marry? She could be stern where honour was in-
volved, that sweet mother of mine, and I yielded to
her wish as I had been ever wont to do, for a look or
a word from her had ever been my law, save where
religion was concerned. So I married in the winter of
1867 with no more idea of the marriage relation than
if I had been four years old instead of twenty. My

MARRIAGE. 71

dreamy life, into which no knowledge of evil had been
allowed to penetrate, in which I had been guarded from
all pain, shielded from all anxiety, kept innocent on all
questions of sex, was no preparation for married exis-
tence, and left me defenceless to face a rude awakening.
Looking back on it all, I deliberately say that no more
fatal blunder can be made than to train a girl to woman-
hood in ignorance of all life's duties and burdens, and
then to let her face them for the first time away from
all the old associations, the old helps, the old refuge on
the mother's breast. That " perfect innocence " may
be very beautiful, but it is a perilous possession, and
Eve should have the knowledge of good and evil ere
she wanders forth from the paradise of a mother's love.
Many an unhappy marriage dates from its very begin-
ning, from the terrible shock to a young girl's sensitive
modesty and pride, her helpless bewilderment and fear.
Men, with their public school and college education,
or the knowledge that comes by living in the outside
world, may find it hard to realise the possibility of
such infantile ignorance in many girls. None the less,
such ignorance is a fact in the case of some girls at
least, and no mother should let her daughter, blindfold,
slip her neck under the marriage yoke.

Before leaving the harbourage of girlhood to set sail
on the troublous sea of life, there is an occurrence
of which I must make mention, as it marks my first
awakening of interest in the outer world of political
struggle. In the autumn of 1867 my mother and I
were staying with some dear friends of ours, the
Robertses, at Pendleton, near Manchester. Mr.

72 ANNIE BESANT.

Roberts was " the poor man's lawyer,* in the affec-
tionate phrase used of him by many a hundred men.
He was a close friend of Ernest Jones, and was always
ready to fight a poor man's battle without fee. He
worked hard in the agitation which saved women from
working in the mines, and I have heard him tell how
he had seen them toiling, naked to the waist, with short
petticoats barely reaching to their knees, rough, foul-
tongued, brutalised out of all womanly decency and
grace ; and how he had seen little children working
there too, babies of three and four set to watch a door,
and falling asleep at their work to be roused by curse
and kick to the unfair toil. The old man's eye would
begin to flash and his voice to rise as he told of these
horrors, and then his face would soften as he added that,
after it was all over and the slavery was put an end to,
as he went through a coal district the women standing at
their doors would lift up their children to see "Lawyer
Roberts " go by, and would bid *' God bless him "
for what he had done. This dear old man was my
first tutor in Radicalism, and I was an apt pupil. I had
taken no interest in politics, but had unconsciously
reflected more or less the decorous Whiggism which
had always surrounded me. I regarded "the poor" as
folk to be educated, looked after, charitably dealt with,
and always treated with most perfect courtesy, the
courtesy being due from me, as a lady, to all equally,
whether they were rich or poor. But to Mr. Roberts
" the poor " were the working-bees, the wealth pro-
ducers, with a right to self-rule not to looking after,
with a right to justice, not to charity, and he preached

MARRIAGE. 73

his doctrines to me in season and out of season. I was
a pet of his, and used often to drive him to his office in
the morning, glorying much in the fact that my skill
was trusted in guiding a horse through the crowded
Manchester streets. During these drives, and on all
other available occasions, Mr. Roberts would preach to
me the cause of the people. " What do you think of
John Bright.'' " he demanded suddenly one day, looking
at me with fiery eyes from under heavy brows. " I
have never thought of him at all," was the careless
answer. " Isn't he a rather rough sort of man, who
goes about making rows .? " " There, I thought so ! "
he thundered at me fiercely. " That's just what I say.
I believe some of you fine ladies would not go to
heaven if you had to rub shoulders with John Bright,
the noblest man God ever gave to the cause of the
poor."

This was the hot-tempered and lovable " demagogue,"
as he was called, with whom we were staying when
Colonel Kelly and Captain Deasy, two Fenian leaders,
were arrested in Manchester and put on their trial.
The whole Irish population became seething with ex-
citement, and on September 1 8th the police van carrying
them to Salford Gaol was stopped at the Bellevue Rail-
way Arch by the sudden fall of one of the horses, shot
from the side of the road. In a moment the van was
surrounded, and crowbars were wrenching at the van
door. It resisted ; a body of police was rapidly
approaching, and if the rescue was to be effective the
door must be opened. The rescuers shouted to Brett,
the constable inside, to pass out his keys ; he refused.

74 ANNIE BESANT.

and some one exclaimed, " Blow ofF the lock ! " In a
moment the muzzle of a revolver was against the lock,
and it was blown off; but Brett, stooping down to
look through the keyhole, received the bullet in his
head, and fell dying as the door flew open. Another
moment, and Allen, a lad of seventeen, had wrenched
open the doors of the compartments occupied by Kelly
and Deasy, dragged them out, and while two or three
hurried them off to a place of safety, the others threw
themselves between the fugitives and the police, and
with levelled revolvers guarded their flight. The
Fenian leaders once safe, they scattered, and young
William Allen, whose one thought had been for his
chiefs, seeing them safe, fired his revolver in the air,
for he would not shed blood in his own defence. Dis-
armed by his own act, he was set on by the police,
brutally struck dov/n, kicked and stoned, and was
dragged off to gaol, faint and bleeding, to meet there
some of his comrades in much the same plight as him-
self. Then Manchester went mad, and race-passions
flared up into flame ; no Irish workman was safe in a
crowd of Englishmen, no Englishman safe in the Irish
quarter. The friends of the prisoners besieged *' Lawyer
Roberts's " house, praying his aid, and he threw his
whole fiery soul into their defence. The man who had
fired the accidentally fatal shot was safely out of the
way, and none of the others had hurt a human being.
A Special Commission was issued, with Mr. Justice
Blackburn at its head — " the hanging judge," groaned
Mr. Roberts — and it was soon in Manchester, for all
Mr. Roberts's efforts to get the venue of the trial

™chans:ed v

MARRIAGE. 75

changed were futile, though of fair trial then in Man-
chester there was no chance. On October 25th the
prisoners were actually brought up before the magis-
trates in irons, and Mr. Ernest Jones, their counsel,
failing in his protest against this outrage, threw down
his brief and left the court. So great was the haste
with which the trial was hurried on that on the 29th
Allen, Larkin, Gould (O'Brien), Maguire, and Condon
were standing in the dock before the Commission
charged with murder.

My first experience of an angry crowd was on that
day as we drove to the court ; the streets were barri-
caded, the soldiers were under arms, every approach to
the court crowded with surging throngs. At last our
carriage was stopped as we were passing at a foot's pace
through an Irish section of the crowd, and various
vehement fists came through the window, with hearty

curses at the " d d English who were going to see

the boys murdered." The situation was critical, for we
were two women and three girls, when I bethought
myself that we were unknown, and gently touched the
nearest fist : " Friends, these are Mr. Roberts' wife and
daughters." " Roberts ! Lawyer Roberts! God bless
Roberts ! Let his carriage through." And all the
scowling faces became smile-wreathen, and curses
changed to cheers, as a road to the court steps was
cleared for us.

Alas ! if there was passion on behalf of the prisoners
outside, there was passion against them within, and the
very opening of the trial showed the spirit that animated
the prosecution and the bench. Digby Seymour, Q.C.,

76 ANNIE BESANT.

and Ernest Jones, were briefed for the defence, and Mr.
Roberts did not think that they exercised- sufficiently
their right of challenge ; he knew, as we all did, that
many on the panel had loudly proclaimed their hostility
to the Irish, and Mr. Roberts persisted in challenging
them as his counsel would not. In vain Judge Black-
burn threatened to commit the rebellious solicitor:
" These men's lives are at stake, my lord," was his
indignant plea. " Remove that man ! " cried the angry
judge, but as the officers of the court came forward very
slowly — for all poor men loved and honoured the
sturdy fighter — he changed his mind and let him stay.
Despite all his efforts, the jury contained a man who
had declared that he " didn't care what the evidence

was, he would hang every d d Irishman of the lot."

And the result showed that he was not alone in his
view, for evidence of the most disreputable kind was
admitted ; women of the lowest type were put into the
box as witnesses, and their word taken as unchallenge-
able ; thus was destroyed an alibi for Maguire, after-
wards accepted by the Crown, a free pardon being
issued on the strength of it. Nothing could save the
doomed men from the determined verdict, and I could
see from where I was sitting into a little room behind
the bench, where an official was quietly preparing the
black caps before the verdict had been delivered. The
foregone " Guilty " was duly repeated as verdict on
each of the five cases, and the prisoners asked if they
had anything to say why sentence of death should not
be passed on them. Allen, boy as he was, made a very
brave and manly speech ; he had not fired, save in the

MARRIAGE. Tj

air — if he had done so he might have escaped ; he had
helped to free Kelly and Deasy, and did not regret it ;
he was willing to die for Ireland. Maguire and Condon
(he also was reprieved) declared they were not present,
but, like Allen, were ready to die for their country.
Sentence of death was passed, and, as echo to the sar-
donic " The Lord have mercy on your souls," rang
back from the dock in five clear voices, with never a
quiver of fear in them, " God save Ireland ! " and the
men passed one by one from the sight of my tear-
dimmed eyes.

It was a sorrowful time that followed ; the despair
of the heart-broken girl who was Allen's sweetheart,
and who cried to us on her knees, " Save my William ! "
was hard to see ; nothing we or any one could do
availed to avert the doom, and on November 23rd Allen,
Larkin, and O'Brien were hanged outside Salford Gaol.
Had they striven for freedom in Italy England would
have honoured them ; here she buried them as common
murderers in quicklime in the prison yard.

I have found, with a keen sense of pleasure, that Mr.
Bradlaugh and myself were in 1867 to some extent
co-workers, although we knew not of each other's
existence, and although he was doing much, and I only
giving such poor sympathy as a young girl might, who
was only just awakening to the duty of political work.
I read in the National Reformer for November 24,
1867, th^t i^ the preceding week he was pleading on
Clerkenwell Green for these men's lives : —

" According to the evidence at the trial, Deasy and
Kelly were illegally arrested. They had been arrested

78 ANNIE BESANT.

for vagrancy of which no evidence was given, and
apparently remanded for felony without a shadow of
justification. He had yet to learn that in England the
same state of things existed as in Ireland ; he had yet
to learn that an illegal arrest was sufficient ground to
detain any of the citizens of any country in the prisons
of this one. If he were illegally held, he was justified
in using enough force to procure his release. Wearing
a policeman's coat gave no authority when the officer
exceeded his jurisdiction. He had argued this before
Lord Chief Justice Erie in the Court of Common
Pleas, and that learned judge did not venture to
contradict the argument which he submitted. There
was another reason why they should spare these men,
although he hardly expected the Government to listen,
because the Government sent down one of the judges
who was predetermined to convict the prisoners ; it
was that the offence was purely a political one. The
death of Brett was a sad mischance, but no one who
read the evidence could regard the killing of Brett
as an intentional murder. Legally, it was murder ;
morally, it was homicide in the rescue of a political
captive. If it were a question of the rescue of the
political captives of Varignano, or of political captives
in Bourbon, in Naples, or in Poland, or in Paris, even
earls might be found so to argue. Wherein is our
sister Ireland less than these ^ In executing these
men, they would throw down the gauntlet for terrible
reprisals. It was a grave and solemn question. It
had been said by a previous speaker that they were
prepared to go to any lengths to save these Irishmen.

MARRIAGE. 79

They were not. He wished they were. If they were,
if the men of England, from one end to the other,
were prepared to say, 'These men shall not be
executed,' they would not be. He was afraid they
had not pluck enough for that. Their moral courage
was not equal to their physical strength. Therefore
he would not say that they were prepared to do so.
They must plead ad misericordiam. He appealed to
the press, which represented the power of England ;
to that press which in its panic-stricken moments had
done much harm, and which ought now to save these
four doomed men. If the press demanded it, no
Government would be mad enough to resist. The
memory of the blood which was shed in 1798 rose
up like a bloody ghost against them to-day. He only
feared that what they said upon the subject might do
the poor men more harm than good. If it were not
so, he would coin words that should speak m words of
fire. As it was, he could only say to the Govern-
ment : You are strong to-day ; you hold these men's
lives in your hands ; but if you want to reconcile
their country to you, if you want to win back Ireland,
if you want to make her children love you — then do
not embitter their hearts still more by taking the lives
of these men. Temper your strength with mercy ;
do not use the sword of justice like one of vengeance,
for the day may come when it shall be broken in your
hands, and you yourselves brained by the hilt of the
weapon you have so wickedly wielded."

In October he had printed a plea for Ireland, strong
and earnest, asking : —

8o ANNIE BESANT.

" Where is our boasted English freedom when you
cross to Kingstown pier ? Where has it been for near
two years ? The Habeas Corpus Act suspended, the
gaols crowded, the steamers searched, spies listening at
shebeen shops for sedition, and the end of it a Fenian
panic in England. Oh, before it be too late, before
more blood stain the pages of our present history,
before we exasperate and arouse bitter animosities, let
us try and do justice to our sister land. Abolish once
and for all the land laws, which in their iniquitous
operation have ruined her peasantry. Sweep away the
leech-like Church which has sucked her vitality, and
has given her back no word even of comfort in her
degradation. Turn her barracks into flax mills, en-
courage a spirit of independence in her citizens, restore
to her people the protection of the law, so that they
may speak without fear of arrest, and beg them to
plainly and boldly state their grievances. Let a com-
mission of the best and wisest amongst Irishmen, with
some of our highest English judges added, sit solemnly
to hear all complaints, and then let us honestly legis-
late, not for the punishment of the discontented, but
to remove the causes of the discontent. It is not the
Fenians who have depopulated Ireland's strength and
increased her misery. It is not the Fenians who have
evicted tenants by the score. It is not the Fenians
who have checked cultivation. Those who have caused
the wrong at least should frame the remedy,"

In December, 1867, I sailed out of the safe harbour
of my happy and peaceful girlhood on to the wide sea
of life, and the waves broke roughly as soon as the

MARRIAGE. 8i

bar was crossed. We were an ill-matched pair, my
husband and I, from the very outset ; he, with very
high ideas of a husband's authority and a wife's sub-
mission, holding strongly to the " master-in-my-own-
house theory," thinking much of the details of home
arrangements, precise, methodical, easily angered and
with difficulty appeased. I, accustomed to freedom,
indifferent to home details, impulsive, very hot-tem-
pered, and proud as Lucifer. I had never had a
harsh word spoken to me, never been ordered to do
anything, had had my way smoothed for my feet, and
never a worry had touched me. Harshness roused first
incredulous wonder, then a storm of indignant tears,
and after a time a proud, defiant resistance, cold and hard
as iron. The easy-going, sunshiny, enthusiastic girl
changed — and changed pretty rapidly — into a grave,
proud, reticent woman, burying deep in her own heart
all her hopes, her fears, and her disillusions. I must
have been a very unsatisfactory wife from the begin-
ning, though I think other treatment might gradually
have turned me into a fair imitation of the proper
conventional article. Beginning with the ignorance
before alluded to, and so scared and outraged at heart
from the very first ; knowing nothing of household
management or economical use of money — I had never
had an allowance or even bought myself a pair of
gloves — though eager to perform my new duties credit-
ably ; unwilling to potter over little things, and liking
to do swiftly what I had to do, and then turn to
my beloved books ; at heart fretting for my mother
but rarely speaking of her, as I found my longing for

6

82 ANNIE BESANT. *

her presence raised jealous vexation ; with strangers
about me with whom I had no sympathy ; visited by
ladies who talked to me only about babies and servants
— troubles of which I knew nothing and which bored
me unutterably — and who were as uninterested in all
that had filled my life, in theology, in politics, in
science, as I was uninterested in the discussions on the
housemaid's young man and on the cook's extrava-
gance in using *' butter, when dripping would have
done perfectly well, my dear" ; was it wonderful that
I became timid, dull, and depressed ?

All my eager, passionate enthusiasm, so attractive to
men in a young girl, were doubtless incompatible with
" the solid comfort of a wife," and I must have been
inexpressibly tiring to the Rev. Frank Besant. And, in
truth, I ought never to have married, for under the
soft, loving, pliable girl there lay hidden, as much un-
known to herself as to her surroundings, a woman of
strong dominant will, strength that panted for expres-
sion and rebelled against restraint, fiery and passionate
emotions that were seething under compression — a
most undesirable partner to sit in the lady's arm-
chair on the domestic rug before the fire, ^e le
diable faisait-elle dans cette galere^l have often thought,
looking back at my past self, and asking. Why did
that foolish girl make her bed so foolishly .? But self-
analysis shows the contradictories in my nature that
led me into so mistaken a course. I have ever been
the queerest mixture of weakness and strength, and
have paid heavily for the weakness. As a child I used
to suffer tortures of shyness, and if my shoe-lace was

MARRIAGE. 83

untied would feel shamefacedly that every eye was fixed
on the unlucky string ; as a girl I would shrink away
from strangers and think myself unwanted and unliked,
so that I was full of eager gratitude to any one who
noticed me kindly ; as the young mistress of a house,
I was afraid of my servants, and would let careless
work pass rather than bear the pain of reproving the
ill-doer ; when I have been lecturing and debating
with no lack of spirit on the platform, I have preferred
to go without what I wanted at the hotel rather than
to ring and make the waiter fetch it ; combative on
the platform in defence of any cause I cared for, I
shrink from quarrel or disapproval in the home, and
am a coward at heart in private while a good fighter
in public. How often have I passed unhappy quarters
of an hour screwing up my courage to find fault with
some subordinate whom my duty compelled me to
reprove, and how often have I jeered at myself for a
fraud as the doughty platform combatant, when shrink-
ing from blaming some lad or lass for doing their work
badly ! An unkind look or word has availed to make
me shrink into myself as a snail into its shell, while on
the platform opposition makes me speak my best. So
I slid into marriage blindly and stupidly, fearing to
give pain ; fretted my heart out for a year ; then,
roused by harshness and injustice, stiffened and har-
dened, and lived with a wall of ice round me within
which I waged mental conflicts that nearly killed me ;
and learned at last how to live and work in armour
that turned the edge of the weapons that struck it, and
left the flesh beneath unwounded, armour laid aside,
but in the presence of a very few.

84 ANNIE BESANT.

My first serious attempts at writing were made in
1868, and I took up two very different lines of com-
position ; I wrote some short stories of a very flimsy
type, and also a work of a much more ambitious
character, " The Lives of the Black Letter Saints."
For the sake of the unecclesiastically trained it may be
as well to mention that in the Calendar of the Church
of England there are a number of Saints' Days ; some
of these are printed in red, and are Red Letter Days,
for which services are appointed by the Church ; others
are printed in black, and are Black Letter Days, and
have no special services fixed for them. It seemed to
me that it would be interesting to take each of these
days and write a sketch of the life of the saint belong-
ing to it, and accordingly I set to work to do so, and
gathered various books of history and legend where-
from to collect my ** facts." I do not in the least know
what became of that valuable book ; I tried Mac-
millans with it, and it was sent on by them to some one
who was preparing a series of Church books for the
young ; later I had a letter from a Church brotherhood
offering to publish it, if I would give it as " an act of
piety " to their order ; its ultimate fate is to me un-
known.

The short stories were more fortunate. I sent the
first to the Family Herald, and some weeks afterwards
received a letter from which dropped a cheque as I
opened it. Dear me ! I have earned a good deal of
money since by my pen, but never any that gave me
the intense delight of that first thirty shillings. It was
the first money I had ever earned, and the pride of

MARRIAGE. 85

the earning was added to the pride of authorship. In
my childish delight and practical religion, I went down
on my knees and thanked God for sending it to me,
and I saw myself earning heaps of golden guineas, and
becoming quite a support of the household. Besides,
it was " my very own," I thought, and a delightful sense
of independence came over me. I had not then realised
the beauty of the English law, and the dignified position
in which it placed the married woman ; I did not under-
stand that all a married woman earned by law belonged
to her owner, and that she could have nothing that
belonged to her of right.* I did not want the money :
1 was only so glad to have something of my own to
give, and it was rather a shock to learn that it was not
really mine at all.

From time to time after that I earned a few pounds
for stories in the same journal ; and the Family Herald^
let me say, has one peculiarity which should render it
beloved by poor authors ; it pays its contributor when
it accepts the paper, whether it prints it immediately
or not ; thus my first story was not printed for some
weeks after I received the cheque, and it was the same
with all the others accepted by the same journal.
Encouraged by these small successes, I began writing a
novel ! It took a long time to do, but was at last
finished, and sent off to the Family Herald. The poor
thing came back, but with a kind note, telling me that it
was too political for their pages, but that if I would
write one of '* purely domestic interest," and up to the

* This odious law has now been altered, and a married woman
is a person, not a chattel.

86 j AmNIE BESANT.

same le(v|j, it would probably be accepted. But by
that time I was in the full struggle of theological doubt,
and that novel of " purely domestic interest " never got
itself written.

I contributed further to the literature of my country
a theological pamphlet, of which I forget the exact
title, but it dealt with the duty of fasting incumbent
on all faithful Christians, and was very patristic in its
tone.

In January, 1869, my little son was born, and as I
was very ill for some months before, and was far too
much interested in the tiny creature afterwards, to
devote myself to pen and paper, my literary career was
checked for a while. The baby gave a new interest and
a new pleasure to life, and as we could not afford a
nurse I had plenty to do in looking after his small
majesty. My energy in reading became less feverish
when it was done by the side of the baby's cradle, and
the little one's presence almost healed the abiding pain
of my mother's loss.

I may pass very quickly over the next two years. In
August, 1870, a little sister was born to my son, and
the recovery was slow and tedious, for my general
health had been failing for some time.

The boy was a bright, healthy little fellow, but the
girl was delicate from birth, suffering from her mother's
unhappiness, and born somewhat prematurely in conse-
quence of a shock. When, in the spring of 1871, the
two children caught the whooping cough, my Mabel's
delicacy made the ordeal well-nigh fatal to her. She
was very young for so trying a disease, and after a while

From a p/ioiogra/'h by Vighton'sAit Studu\ Cheltenham.

ANNIK BKSANT
1869.

MARRIAGE. 87

bronchitis set in and was followed by congestion of the
lungs. For weeks she lay in hourly peril of death
We arranged a screen round the fire like a tent, and
kept it full of steam to ease the panting breath ; and
there I sat, day and night, all through those weary
weeks, the tortured baby on my knees. I loved my
little ones passionately, for their clinging love soothed
the aching at my heart, and their baby eyes could not
critically scan the unhappiness that grew deeper month
by month ; and that steam-filled tent became my world,
and there, alone, I fought with Death for my child.
The doctor said that recovery was impossible, and that
in one of the paroxysms of coughing she must die ; the
most distressing thing was that, at last, even a drop or
two of milk would bring on the terrible convulsive
choking, and it seemed cruel to add to the pain of the
apparently dying child. At length, one morning the
doctor said she could not last through the day ; I had
sent for him hurriedly, for the body had suddenly
swollen up as a result of the perforation of one of
the pleurae, and the consequent escape of air into the
cavity of the chest. While he was there one of the fits
of coughing came on, and it seemed as though it must
be the last. He took a small bottle of chloroform out
of his pocket, and putting a drop on a handkerchief
held it near the child's face, till the drug soothed the
convulsive struggle. " It can't do any harm at this
stage," he said, " and it checks the suffering." He went
away, saying that he feared he would never see the
child alive again. One of the kindest friends I had in
my married life was that same doctor, Mr. Lauriston

88 ANNIE BESANT.

Winterbotham ; he was as good as he was clever, and,
like so many of his noble profession, he had the merits
of discretion and silence. He never breathed a word as
to my unhappiness, until in 18781 he came up to town
to give evidence as to cruelty which — had the deed of
separation not been held as condonation — would have
secured me a divorce a mensa et thoro.

The child, however, recovered, and her recovery was
due, I think, to that chance thought of Mr. Winter-
botham's about the chloroform, for I used it whenever
the first sign of a fit of coughing appeared, and so
warded off the convulsive attack and the profound
exhaustion that followed, in which a mere flicker of
breath at the top of the throat was the only sign of
life, and sometimes even that disappeared, and I thought
her gone. For years the child remained ailing and
delicate, requiring the tenderest care, but those weeks
of anguish left a deeper trace on mother than on child.
Once she was out of danger I collapsed physically, and
lay in bed for a week unmoving, and then rose to face a
struggle which lasted for three years and two months, and
nearly cost me my life, the struggle which transformed
me from a Christian into an Atheist. The agony of the
struggle was in the first nineteen months — a time to be
looked back upon with shrinking, as it was a hell to live
through at the time. For no one who has not felt it
knows the fearful anguish inflicted by doubt on the
earnestly religious soul. There is in life no other pain
so horrible, so keen in its torture, so crushing in its
weight. It seems to shipwreck everything, to destroy
the one steady gleam of happiness " on the other

MARRIAGE. 89

side " that no earthly storm could obscure ; to make all
life gloomy with a horror of despair, a darkness that
verily may be felt. Nothing but an imperious intel-
lectual and moral necessity can drive into doubt a
religious mind, for it is as though an earthquake shook
the foundations of the soul, and the very being quivers
and sways under the shock. No life in the empty sky;
no gleam in the blackness of the night ; no voice to
break the deadly silence ; no hand outstretched to save.
Empty-brained triflers who have never tried to think,
who take their creed as they take their fashions, speak
of Atheism as the outcome of foul life and vicious
desires. In their shallow heartlessness and shallower
thought they cannot even dimly imagine the anguish
of entering the mere penumbra of the Eclipse of Faith,
much less the horror of that great darkness in which the
orphaned soul cries out into the infinite emptiness : " Is
it a Devil that has made the world ? Is the echo,
* Children, ye have no Father,' true ? Is all blind
chance, is all the clash of unconscious forces, or are we
the sentient toys of an Almighty Power that sports
with our agony, whose peals of awful mockery of
laughter ring back answer to the wailings of our
despair ? "

How true are the noble words of Mrs. Hamilton
King :—

"For some may follow Truth from dawn to dark,
As a child follows by his mother's hand,
Knowing no fear, rejoicing all the way;
And unto some her face is as a Star
Set through an avenue of thorns and fires,

90 j I ANNIE BESANT.

And waving branches black without a leaf ;

j^nd sitill It draws them, though the feet must bleed,

Though garments must be rent, and eyes be scorched :

And if the valley of the shadow of death

Be passed, and to the level road they come,

Still with their faces to the polar star,

It is not with the same looks, the same limbs,

But halt, and maimed, and of infirmity.

And for the rest of the way they have to go

It is not day but night, and oftentimes

A night of clouds wherein the stars are lost." *

Aye ! but never lost is the Star of Truth to which the
face is set, and while that shines all lesser lights may go.
It was the long months of suffering through which
I had been passing, with the seemingly purposeless
torturing of my little one as a climax, that struck the
first stunning blow at my belief in God as a merciful
Father of men. I had been visiting the poor a good
deal, and had marked the patient suffering of their
lives ; my idolised mother had been defrauded by a
lawyer she had trusted, and was plunged into debt by
his non-payment of the sums that should have passed
through his hands to others ; my own bright life had
been enshrouded by pain and rendered to me degraded
by an intolerable sense of bondage ; and here was my
helpless, sinless babe tortured for weeks and left frail
and suffering. The smooth brightness of my previous
life made all the disillusionment more startling, and the
sudden plunge into conditions so new and so unfavour-
able dazed and stunned me. My religious past became
the worst enemy of the suffering present. All my
» "The Disciples," p. 14.

MARRIAGE. * 91

personal belief in Christ, all my intense faith in His
constant direction of affairs, all my habit of continual
prayer and of realisation of His Presence — all were
against me now. The very height of my trust was the
measure of the shock when the trust gave way. To
me He was no abstract idea, but a living reality, and
all my heart rose up against this Person in whom I
believed, and whose individual finger I saw in my
baby's agony, my own misery, the breaking of my
mother's proud heart under a load of debt, and all the
bitter suffering of the poor. The presence of pain and
evil in a world made by a good God ; the pain falling
on the innocent, as on my seven months' old babe ; the
pain begun here reaching on into eternity unhealed ; a
sorrow-laden world ; a lurid, hopeless hell ; all these,
while I still believed, drove me desperate, and instead
of like the devils believing and trembling, I believed
and hated. All the hitherto dormant and unsuspected
strength of my nature rose up in rebellion ; I did not
yet dream of denial, but I would no longer kneel.

As the first stirrings of this hot rebellion moved in
my heart I met a clergyman of a very noble type, who
did much to help me by his ready and wise sympathy.
Mr. Besant brought him to see me during the crisis of
the child's illness ; he said little, but on the following
day I received from him the following note : —

" April 21, 1871.
"My dear Mrs. Besant, — I am painfully con-
scious that I gave you but little help in your trouble
yesterday. It is needless to say that it was not from

92 ANNIE BESANT.

want of sympathy. Perhaps it would be nearer the
truth to say that it was from excess of sympathy. I
shrink intensely from meddling with the sorrow of
any one whom I feel to be of a sensitive nature. * The
heart hath its own bitterness, and the stranger meddleth
not therewith.' It is to me a positively fearful thought
that I might awaken such a reflection as

" ' And common was the commonplace.
And vacant chafF well meant for grain.'

Conventional consolations, conventional verses out of
the Bible, and conventional prayers are, it seems to me,
an intolerable aggravation of suffering. And so I acted
on a principle that I mentioned to your husband that
' there is no power so great as that of one human faith
looking upon another human faith.' The promises of
God, the love of Christ for little children, and all that
has been given to us of hope and comfort, are as deeply
planted in your heart as in mine, and I did not care to
quote them. But when I talk face to face with one
who is in sore need of them, my faith in them suddenly
becomes so vast and heart-stirring that I think I must
help most by talking naturally, and letting the faith
find its own way fi-om soul to soul. Indeed, I could
not find words for it if I tried. And yet I am com-
pelled, as a messenger of the glad tidings of God, to
solemnly assure you that all is well. We have no key
to the * mystery of pain' excepting the Cross of Christ.
But there is another and a deeper solution in the hands
of our Father ; and it will be ours when we can under-
stand it. There is — in the place to which we travel —

MARRIAGE. 93

some blessed explanation of your baby s pain and your
grief, which will fill with light the darkest heart.
Now you must believe without having seen; that is
true faith. You must

" ' Reach a hand through time to catch
The far-ofF interest of tears.*

That you may have strength so to do is part of your
share in the prayers of

*' Yours very faithfully,

<»W. D ."

A noble letter, but the storm was beating too fiercely
to be stilled, and one night in that summer of 1871
stands out clearly before me. Mr. Besant was away,
and there had been a fierce quarrel before he left. I
was outraged, desperate, with no door of escape from a
life that, losing its hope in God, had not yet learned to
live for hope for man. No door of escape ? The
thought came like a flash : " There is one ! " And
before me there swung open, with lure of peace and of
safety, the gateway into silence and security, the gate-
way of the tomb. I was standing by the drawing-room
window, staring hopelessly at the evening sky ; with
the thought came the remembrance that the means was
at hand — the chloroform that had soothed my baby's
pain, and that I had locked away upstairs. I ran
up to my room, took out the bottle, and carried
it downstairs, standing again at the window in the
summer twilight, glad that the struggle was over and
peace at hand. I uncorked the bottle, and was raising

94 ANNIE BESANT.

it to my lips, when, as though the words were spoken
softly and clearly, I heard : " O coward, coward, who
used to dream of martyrdom, and cannot bear a few
short years of pain ! " A rush of shame swept over
me, and I flung the bottle far away among the shrubs
in the garden at my feet, and for a moment I felt
strong as for a struggle, and then fell fainting on the
floor. Only once again in all the strifes of my career
did the thought of suicide recur, and then it was but
for a moment, to be put aside as unworthy a strong
soul.

My new friend, Mr. D , proved a very real help.

The endless torture of hell, the vicarious sacrifice of
Christ, the trustworthiness of revelation, doubts on
all these hitherto accepted doctrines grew and heaped
themselves on my bewildered soul. My questionings

were neither shirked nor discouraged by Mr. D ;

he was not horrified nor was he sanctimoniously re-
bukeful, but met them all with a wide comprehension
inexpressibly soothing to one writhing in the first
agonies of doubt. He left Cheltenham in the early
autumn of 1 871, but the following extracts from a letter
written in November will show the kind of net in
which I was struggling (I had been reading M'Leod
Campbell's work " On the Atonement ") : —

" You forget one great principle — that God is im-
passive, cannot suffer. Christ, qua God, did not suff^er,
but as Son of Man and in His humanity. Still, it may
be correctly stated that He felt to sin and sinners ' as
God eternally feels* — i.e.^ abhorrence of sin ^ and love of
the sinner. But to infer from that that the Father in

MARRIAGE. 95

His Godhead feels the sufferings which Christ ex-
perienced solely in humanity, and because incarnate
is, I think, wrong.

" (2) I felt strongly inclined to blow you up for the
last part of your letter. You assume, I think quite
gratuitously, that God condemns the major part of His
children to objectless future suffering. You say that
if He does not, He places a book in their hands which
threatens what He does not mean to inflict. But how
utterly this seems to me opposed to the gospel of
Christ ! All Christ's references to eternal punishment
may be resolved into references to the Valley of
Hinnom, by way of imagery ; with the exception of
the Dives parable, where is distinctly inferred a moral
amendment beyond the grave. I speak of the unselfish
desire of Dives to save his brothers. The more I see
of the controversy, the more baseless does the eternal
punishment theory appear. It seems then, to me, that
instead of feeling aggrieved and shaken, you ought to
feel encouraged and thankful that God is so much
better than you were taught to believe Him. You
will have discovered by this time in Maurice's ' What
is Revelation ^ ' (I suppose you have the ' Sequel,*
too.?), that God's truth is our truth, and His love is
our love, only more perfect and full. There is no
position more utterly defeated in modern philosophy
and theology than Dean Mansel's attempt to show
that God's love, justice, &c., are different in kind from
ours. Mill and Maurice, from totally alien points of
view, have shown up the preposterous nature of the
notion.

96 ANNIE BESANT

" (3) A good deal of what you have thought is, I
fancy, based on a strange forgetfulness of your former
experience. If you have known Christ — (whom to
know is eternal life) — and that you have known Him I
am certain — can you really say that a few intellectual
difficulties, nay, a few moral difficulties if you will, are
able at once to obliterate the testimony of that higher
state of being ?

" Why, the keynote of all my theology is that
Christ is lovable because, and just because. He is the
perfection of all that I know to be noble and generous,
and loving, and tender, and true. If an angel from
heaven brought me a gospel which contained doctrines
that would not stand the test of such perfect lovable-
ness — doctrines hard, or cruel, or unjust — I should
reject him and his trumpery gospel with scorn, knowing
that neither could be Christ's. Know Christ and judge
religions by Him ; don't judge Him by religions, and
then complain because they find yourself looking at
Him through a blood-coloured glass."

" I am saturating myself with Maurice, who is the
antidote given by God to this age against all dreary
doubtings and temptings of the devil to despair."

Many a one, in this age of controversy over all
things once held sacred, has found peace and new
light on this line of thought, and has succeeded in
thus reconciling theological doctrines with the demands
of the conscience for love and justice in a world made
by a just and loving God. I could not do so. The
awakening to what the world was, to the facts of
human misery, to the ruthless tramp of nature and of

MARRIAGE. 97

events over the human heart, making no difference
between innocent and guilty — the shock had been too
great for the equilibrium to be restored by arguments
that appealed to the emotions and left the intellect un-
convinced. Months of this long-drawn-out mental
anguish wrought their natural effects on physical
health, and at last I broke down completely, and lay
for weeks helpless and prostrate, in raging and un-
ceasing head-pain, unable to sleep, unable to bear the
light, lying like a log on the bed, not unconscious, but
indifferent to everything, consciousness centred, as it
were, in the ceaseless pain. The doctor tried every
form of relief, but, entrenched in its citadel, the pain
defied his puny efforts. He covered my head with ice,
he gave me opium — which only drove me mad — he
did all that skill and kindness could do, but all in vain.
'Finally the pain wore itself out, and the moment he
dared to do so, he tried mental diversion ; he brought
me books on anatomy, on science, and persuaded me
to study them ; and out of his busy life would steal an
hour to explain to me knotty points on physiology.
He saw that if I were to be brought back to reason-
able life, it could only be by diverting thought from
the channels in which the current had been runnmg to
a dangerous extent. I have often felt that I owed life
and sanity to that good man, who felt for the helpless,
bewildered child-woman, beaten down by the cyclone
of doubt and misery.

So it will easily be understood that my religious
wretchedness only increased the unhappiness of home-
life, for how absurd it was that any reasonable human

7

98 ANNIE BESANT.

being should be so tossed with anguish over intellectual
and moral difficulties on religious matters, and should
make herself ill over these unsubstantial troubles.
Surely it was a woman's business to attend to her
husband's comforts and to see after her children, and
not to break her heart over misery here and hell here-
after, and distract her brain with questions that had
puzzled the greatest thinkers and still remained un-
solved ! And, truly, women or men who get them-
selves concerned about the universe at large, would do
well not to plunge hastily into marriage, for they do
not run smoothly in the double-harness of that honour-
able estate. Sturm und Drang should be faced alone,
and the soul should go out alone into the wilderness
to be tempted of the devil, and not bring his majesty
and all his imps into the placid circle of the home.
Unhappy they who go into marriage with the glamour
of youth upon them and the destiny of conflict im-
printed on their nature, for they make misery for their
partner in marriage as well as for themselves. And if
that partner, strong in traditional authority and con-
ventional habits, seeks to *' break in " the turbulent
and storm-tossed creature — well, it comes to a mere
trial of strength and endurance, whether that driven
creature will fall panting and crushed, or whether it
will turn in its despair, assert its Divine right to
intellectual liberty, rend its fetters in pieces, and, dis-
covering its own strength in its extremity, speak at all
risks its " No " when bidden to live a lie.

When that physical crisis was over I decided on my
line of action. I resolved to take Christianity as it

MARRIAGE. 99

had been taught in the Churches, and carefully and
thoroughly examine its dogmas one by one, so that I
should never again say " I believe " where I had not
proved, and that, however diminished my area of belief,
what was left of it might at least be firm under my
feet. I found that four chief problems were pressing
for solution, and to these I addressed myself. How
many are to-day the souls facing just these problems,
and disputing every inch of their old ground of faith
with the steadily advancing waves of historical and
scientific criticism ! Alas ! for the many Canutes,
as the waves wash over their feet. These problems
were : —

(i) The eternity of punishment after death.

(2) The meaning of " goodness " and " love," as
applied to a God who had made this world, with all
its sin and misery.

(3) The nature of the atonement of Christ, and the
'* justice" of God in accepting a vicarious suffering
from Christ, and a vicarious righteousness from the
sinner.

(4) The meaning of " inspiration " as applied to the
Bible, and the reconciliation of the perfections of the
author with the blunders and immoralities of the
work.

It will be seen that the deeper problems of religion —
the deity of Christ, the existence of God, the immor-
tality of the soul — were not yet brought into question,
and, looking back, I cannot but see how orderly was
the progression of thought, how steady the growth,
after that first terrible earthquake, and the first wild

loo ANNIE BESANT.

swirl of agony. The points that I set myself to study
were those which would naturally be first faced by
any one whose first rebellion against the dogmas of the
Churches was a rebellion of the moral nature rather
than of the intellectual, a protest of the conscience
rather than of the brain. It was not a desire for moral
licence which gave me the impulse that finally landed
me in Atheism ; it was the sense of outraged justice
and insulted right. I was a wife and mother, blame-
less in moral life, with a deep sense of duty and a proud
self-respect ; it was while I was this that doubt struck
me, and while I was in the guarded circle of the home,
with no dream of outside work or outside liberty, that
I lost all faith in Christianity. My education, my
mother's example, my inner timidity and self-distrust,
all fenced me in from temptations from without. It
was the uprising of an outraged conscience that made
me a rebel against the Churches and finally an un-
believer in God. And I place this on record, because
the progress of Materialism will never be checked by
diatribes against unbelievers, as though they became
unbelievers from desire for vice and for licence to do
evil. What Religion has to face in the controversies of
to-day is not the unbelief of the sty, but the unbelief
of the educated conscience and of the soaring intellect ;
and unless it can arm itself with a loftier ethic and
a grander philosophy than its opponent, it will lose
its hold over the purest and the strongest of the
younger generation.

CHAPTER V.

THE STORM OF DOUBT.

MY reading of heretical and Broad Church works
on one side, and of orthodox ones on the other,
now occupied a large part of my time, and our removal
to Sibsey, in Lincolnshire, an agricultural village with a
scattered population, increased my leisure. I read the
works of Robertson, Stopford Brooke, Stanley, Greg,
Matthew Arnold, Liddon, Mansel, and many another,
and my scepticism grew deeper and deeper as I read.
The Broad Church arguments appeared to me to be of
the nature of special pleading, skilful evasions of diffi-
culties rather than the real meeting and solving of them.
For the problem was : Given a good God, how can He
have created mankind, knowing beforehand that the
vast majority of those whom He created were to be
tortured for ever? Given a just God, how can He
punish people for being sinful, when they have inherited
a sinful nature without their own choice and of neces-
sity ? Given a righteous God, how can He allow sin
to exist for ever, so that evil shall be as eternal as
good, and Satan shall reign in hell as long as Christ in
heaven ? Worst of all puzzles, perhaps, was that of

I02 ANNIE BESANT.

the existence of evil and of misery, and the racking
doubt whether God could be good, and yet look on the
evil and the misery of the world unmoved and untouched.
It seemed so impossible to believe that a Creator could
be either cruel enough to be indifferent to the misery,
or weak enough to be unable to stop it. The old
dilemma faced me incessantly : " If He can prevent it
and does not, He is not good ; if He wishes to prevent
it and cannot. He is not almighty." I racked my brains
for an answer. I searched writings of believers for a
clue, but I found no way of escape. Not yet had any
doubt of the existence of God crossed my mind.

Mr. D continued to write me, striving to guide

me along the path which had led his own soul to
contentment, but I can only find room here for two
brief extracts, which will show how to himself he
solved the problem. He thought me mistaken in my
view

" Of the nature of the sin and error which is sup-
posed to grieve God. I take it that sin is an absolutely
necessary factor in the production of the perfect man.
It was foreseen and allowed as means to an end — as, in
fact, an education. The view of all the sin and misery
in the world cannot grieve God any more than it can
grieve you to see Digby fail in his first attempt to
build a card-castle or a rabbit-hutch. All is part of
the training. God looks at the ideal man to which all
tends. . . .

" No, Mrs. Besant ; I never feel at all inclined to
give up the search, or to suppose that the other side
may be right. I claim no merit for it, but I have an

THE STORM OF DOUBT. 103

invincible faith in the morality of God and the moral
order of the world. I have no more doubt about the
falsehood of the popular theology than I have about
the unreality of six robbers who attacked me three
nights ago in a horrid dream. I exult and rejoice in
the grandeur and freedom of the little bit of truth it
has been given me to see. I am told that ' Present-
day Papers,' by Bishop Ewing (edited), are a wonderful
help, many of them, to puzzled people ; I mean to get
them. But I am sure you will find that the truth will
(even so little as we may be able to find out) grow on
you, make you free, light your path, and dispel, at no
distant time, your -painful difficulties and doubts. I
should say on no account give up your reading. I
think with you that you could not do without it. It
will be a wonderful source of help and peace to you.
For there are struggles far more fearful than those of
intellectual doubt. I am keenly alive to the gathered-up
sadness of which your last two pages are an expression.
I was sorrier than I can say to read them. They re-
minded me of a long and very dark time in my own
life, when I thought the light never would come.
Thank God it came, or I think I could not have held
out much longer. But you have evidently strength to
bear it now. The more dangerous time, I should
fancy, has passed. You will have to mind that the
fermentation leaves clear spiritual wine, and not (as
too often) vinegar. I wish I could write something
more helpful to you in this great matter. But as I sit
in front of my large bay window and see the shadows
on the grass and the sunlight on the leaves, and the

I04 ANNIE BESANT.

soft glimmer of the rosebuds left by the .storms, I can
but believe that all will be very well. ' Trust in the
Lord, wait patiently for Him * — they are trite words.
But He made the grass, the leaves, the rosebuds, and
the sunshine, and He is the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ. And now the trite words have swelled into
a mighty argument."

I found more help in Theistic writers like Grey, and
Agnostic like Arnold, than I did in the Broad Church
teachers, but these, of course, served to make return to
the old faith more and more impossible. The Church
services were a weekly torture, but feeling as I did that
I was only a doubter, I kept my doubts to myself. It
was possible, I felt, that all my difficulties might be
cleared up, and I had no right to shake the faith of
others while in uncertainty myself. Others had doubted
and had afterwards recovered their faith ; for the doubter
silence was a duty ; the blinded had better keep their
misery to themselves.

During these weary months of anxiety and torment I
found some relief from the mental strain in practical
parish work, nursing the sick, trying to brighten the
lot of the poor. I learned then some of the lessons as
to the agricultural labourer and the land that I was able
in after-years to teach from the platform. The move-
ment among the agricultural labourers, due to the
energy and devotion of Joseph Arch, was beginning
to be discussed in the fens, and my sympathies went
strongly with the claims of the labourers, for I knew
their life-conditions. In one cottage I had found four
generations sleeping in one room — the great-grandfather

THE STORM OF DOUBT. 105

and his wife, the unmarried grandmother, the unmarried
mother, the little child ; three men lodgers completed
the tale of eight human beings crowded into that
narrow, ill-ventilated garret. Other cottages were
hovels, through the broken roofs of which poured the
rain, and wherein rheumatism and ague lived with the
human dwellers. How could I do aught but sympa-
thise with any combination that aimed at the raising of
these poor? But the Agricultural Labourers' Union
was bitterly opposed by the farmers, and they would
give no work to a " Union man." One example may
serve for all. There was a young married man with
two small children, who was sinful enough to go to a
Union meeting and sinful enough to talk of it on his
return home. No farmer would employ him in all the
district round. He tramped about vainly looking for
work, grew reckless, and took to drink. Visiting his
cottage, consisting of one room and a *' lean-to," I
found his wife ill with fever, a fever-stricken babe in
her arms, the second child lying dead on the bed. In
answer to my soft-spoken questions : Yes, she was
pining (starving), there was no work. Why did she
leave the dead child on the bed.'' Because she had no
other place for it till the coffin came. And at night
the unhappy, driven man, the fever-stricken wife, the
fever-stricken child, the dead child, all lay in the one
bed. The farmers hated the Union because its success
meant higher wages for the men, and it never struck
them that they might well pay less rent to the absent
landlord and higher wage to the men who tilled their
fields. They had only civil words for the burden that

io6 ANNIE BESANT.

crushed them, hard words for the mowers of their
harvests and the builders-up of their ricks ; they made
common cause with their enemies instead of with their
friends, and instead of leaguing themselves together with
the labourers as forming together the true agricultural
interest, they leagued themselves with the landlords
against the labourers, and so made ruinous fratricidal
strife instead of easy victory over the common foe.
And, seeing all this, I learned some useful lessons, and
the political education progressed while the theological
strife went on within.

In the early autumn a ray of light broke the dark-
ness. I was in London with my mother, and wandered
one Sunday morning into St. George's Hall, where the
Rev. Charles Voysey was preaching. There to my
delight I found, on listening to the sermon and buying
some literature on sale in the ante-room, that there
were people who had passed through my own difficul-
ties, and had given up the dogmas that I found so
revolting. I went again on the following Sunday, and
when the service was over I noticed that the outgoing
stream of people were passing by Mr. and Mrs. Voysey,
and that many who were evidently strangers spoke a
word of thanks to him as they went on. Moved by a
strong desire, after the long months of lonely striving,
to speak to one who had struggled out of Christian
difficulties, I said to Mr. Voysey, as I passed in my
turn, *' I must thank you for very great help in what
you said this morning," for in truth, never having yet
doubted the existence of God, the teaching of Mr.
Voysey that He was " loving unto every man, and His

THE STORM OF DOUBT. 107

tender mercy over all His works," came like a gleam
of light across the stormy sea of doubt and distress on
which I had so long been tossing. The next Sunday
saw me again at the Hall, and Mrs. Voysey gave me a
cordial invitation to visit them in their Dulwich home.
I found their Theism was free from the defects that
had revolted me in Christianity, and they opened up to
me new views of religion. I read Theodore Parker's
" Discourse on Religion," Francis Newman's works,
those of Miss Frances Power Cobbe, and of others ;
the anguish of the tension relaxed ; the nightmare of
an Almighty Evil passed away ; my belief in God, not
yet touched, was cleared from all the dark spots that
had sullied it, and I no longer doubted whether the
dogmas that had shocked my conscience were true or
false. I shook them off, once for all, with all their
pain and horror and darkness, and felt, with joy and
relief inexpressible, that they were delusions of the
ignorance of man, not the revelations of a God.

But there was one belief that had not been definitely
challenged, but of which the rationale was gone with
the orthodox dogmas now definitely renounced — the
doctrine of the Deity of Christ. The whole teaching
of the Broad Church school tends, of course, to
emphasise the humanity of Christ at the expense of
His Deity, and when eternal punishment and the sub-
stitutionary atonement had gone there seemed no
reason remaining sufficient to account for so tre-
mendous a miracle as the incarnation, of the Deity.
In the course of my reading I had become familiar
with the idea of Avataras in Eastern creeds, and I

io8 ANNIE BESANT.

saw that the incarnate God was put forward as a fact
by all ancient religions, and thus the way was paved
for challenging the especially Christian teaching, when
the doctrines morally repulsive were cleared away.
But I shrank from the thought of placing in the
crucible a doctrine so dear from all the associations
of the past ; there was so much that was soothing
and ennobling in the idea of a union between Man
and God, between a perfect man and a Divine life,
between a human heart and an almighty strength.
Jesus as God was interwoven with all art and all
beauty in religion ; to break with the Deity of Jesus
was to break with music, with painting, with litera-
ture ; the Divine Babe in His Mother's arms ; the
Divine Man in His Passion and His Triumph ; the
Friend of Man encircled with the majesty of the
Godhead. Did inexorable Truth demand that this
ideal Figure, with all its pathos, its beauty, its
human love, should pass away into the Pantheon
of the dead Gods of the Past ?

Nor was this all. If I gave up belief in Christ
as God, I must give up Christianity as creed. Once
challenge the unique position of the Christ, and the
name Christian seemed to me to be a hypocrisy, and
its renouncement a duty binding on the upright
mind. I was a clergyman's wife ; what would be
the effect of such a step.'' Hitherto mental pain
alone had been the price demanded inexorably from
the searcher after truth ; but with the renouncing
of Christ outer warfare would be added to the inner,
and who might guess the result upon my life.'' The

THE STORM OF DOUBT. 109

struggle was keen but short; I decided to carefully
review the evidence for and against the Deity of
Christ, with the result that that belief followed the
others, and I stood, no longer Christian, face to
face with a dim future in which I sensed the coming
conflict.

One effort I made to escape it ; I appealed to
Dr. Pusey, thinking that if he could not answer my
questionings, no answer to them could be reasonably
hoped for. I had a brief correspondence with him,
but was referred only to lines of argument familiar
to me — as those of Liddon in his "Bampton Lectures"
— and finally, on his invitation, went down to Oxford
to see him. I found a short, stout gentleman, dressed
in a cassock, looking like a comfortable monk ; but
keen eyes, steadfastly gazing straight into mine, told of
the force and subtlety enshrined in the fine, impressive
head. But the learned doctor took the wrong line of
treatment ; he probably saw I was anxious, shy, and
nervous, and he treated me as a penitent going to
confession and seeking the advice of a director, instead
of as an inquirer struggling after truth, and resolute to
obtain some firm standing-ground in the sea of doubt.
He would not deal with the question of the Deity of
Jesus as a question for argument. " You are speaking
of your Judge," he retorted sternly, when I pressed
a difficulty. The mere suggestion of an imperfection
in the character of Jesus made him shudder, and
he checked me with raised hand. " You are blas-
pheming. The very thought is a terrible sin." Would
he recommend me any books that might throw light

no ANNIE BESANT.

on the subject ? " No, no ; you have read too
much already. You must pray ; you must pray."
When I urged that I could not believe without
proof, I was told, *' Blessed are they that have not
seen and yet have believed " ; and my further ques-
tioning was checked by the murmur, " O my child,
how undisciplined ! how impatient ! " Truly, he must
have found in me — hot, eager, passionate in my deter-
mination to knoWy resolute not to profess belief while
belief was absent — nothing of the meek, chastened,
submissive spirit with which he was wont to deal
in penitents seeking his counsel as their spiritual
guide. In vain did he bid me pray as though I
believed ; in vain did he urge the duty of blind
submission to the authority of the Church, of blind,
unreasoning faith that questioned not. I had not
trodden the thorny path of doubt to come to the
point from which I had started ; I needed, and would
have, solid grounds ere I believed. He had no con-
ception of the struggles of a sceptical spirit ; he
had evidently never felt the pangs of doubt ; his
own faith was solid as a rock, firm, satisfied, un-
shakable ; he would as soon have committed suicide
as have doubted of the infallibility of the " Universal
Church."

*' It is not your duty to ascertain the truth," he told
me, sternly. "It is your duty to accept and believe
the truth as laid down by the Church. At your peril
you reject it. The responsibility is not yours so long
as you dutifully accept that which the Church has laid
down for your acceptance. Did not the Lord promise

THE STORM OF DOUBT. iii

that the presence of the Spirit should be ever with
His Church, to guide her into all truth ? "

" But the fact of the promise and its value are just
the very points on which I am doubtful," I answered.

He shuddered. " Pray, pray," he said. " Father,
forgive her, for she knows not what she says."

It was in vain that I urged on him the sincerity
of my seeking, pointing out that I had everything
to gain by following his directions, everything to lose
by going my own way, but that it seemed to me
untruthful to pretend to accept what was not really
believed.

"Everything to lose.? Yes, indeed. You will be
lost for time and lost for eternity."

" Lost or not," I rejoined, " I must and will try
to find out what is true, and I will not believe till
I am sure."

" You have no right to make terms with God,"
he retorted, " as to what you will believe or what
you will not believe. You are full of intellectual
pride."

I sighed hopelessly. Little feeling of pride was
there in me just then, but only a despairful feeling
that in this rigid, unyielding dogmatism there was
no comprehension of my difficulties, no help for me
in my strugglings. I rose, and, thanking him for
his courtesy, said that I would not waste his time
further, that I must go home and face the difficulties,
openly leaving the Church and taking the conse-
quences. Then for the first time his serenity was
ruffled.

112 ANNIE BESANT.

" I forbid you to speak of your disbelief," he cried.
" I forbid you to lead into your own lost state the
souls for whom Christ died."

Slowly and sadly I took my way back to the station,
knowing that my last chance of escape had failed me.
I recognised in this famous divine the spirit of priest-
craft, that could be tender and pitiful to the sinner,
repentant, humble, submissive ; but that was iron to
the doubter, the heretic, and would crush out all
questionings of " revealed truth," silencing by force,
not by argument, all challenge of the traditions of
the Church. Out of such men were made the
Inquisitors of the Middle Ages, perfectly conscien-
tious, perfectly rigid, perfectly merciless to the heretic.
To them heretics are centres of infectious disease, and
charity to the heretic is " the worst cruelty to the
souls of men." Certain that they hold, " by no merit
of our own, but by the mercy of our God, the one
truth which He has revealed," they can permit no
questionings, they can accept nought but the most
complete submission. But while man aspires after
truth, while his mind yearns after knowledge, while
his intellect soars upward into the empyrean of specu-
lation and "beats the air with tireless wing," so long
shall those who demand faith from him be met by
challenge for proof, and those who would blind him
shall be defeated by his resolve to gaze unblenching
on the face of Truth, even though her eyes should
turn him into stone.

It was during this same autumn of 1872 that I first
met Mr. and Mrs. Scott, introduced to them by Mr.

THOMAS SCOTT.

THE STORM OF DOUBT. 113

Voysey. At that time Thomas Scott was an old man,
with beautiful white hair, and eyes like those of a hawk
gleaming from under shaggy eyebrows. He had been
a man of magnificent physique, and, though his frame
was then enfeebled, the splendid lion-like head kept its
impressive strength and beauty, and told of a unique
personality. Well born and wealthy, he had spent his
earlier life in adventure in all parts of the world, and
after his marriage he had settled down at Ramsgate,
and had made his home a centre of heretical thought.
His wife, " his right hand," as he justly called her, was
young enough to be his daughter — a sweet, strong,
gentle, noble woman, worthy of her husband, and than
that no higher praise could be spoken. Mr. Scott for
many years issued monthly a series of pamphlets, all
heretical, though very varying in their shades of
thought ; all were well written, cultured, and polished
in tone, and to this rule Mr. Scott made no exception ;
his writers might say what they liked, but they must
have something to say, and must say it in good English.
His correspondence was enormous, from Prime Minis-
ters downwards. At his house met people of the most
varied opinions ; it was a veritable heretical salon.
Colenso of Natal, Edward Maitland, E. Vansittart
Neale, Charles Bray, Sarah Hennell, and hundreds
more, clerics and laymen, scholars and thinkers, all
coming to this one house, to which the entree was
gained only by love of Truth and desire to spread
Freedom among men. For Thomas Scott my first
Freethought essay was written a few months after,
" On the Deity of Jesus of Nazareth," by the wife of a

8

114 ANNIE BESANT.

beneficed clergyman. My name was not mine to use,
so it was agreed that any essays from my pen should be
anonymous.

And now came the return to Sibsey, and with it the
need for definite steps as to the Church. For now I no
longer doubted, I had rejected, and the time for silence
was past. Iwas willing to attend the Church services,
taking no part in any not directed to God Himself, but
I could no longer attend the Holy Communion, for in
that service, full of recognition of Jesus as Deity and of
His atoning sacrifice, I could no longer take part with-
out hypocrisy. This was agreed to, and well do I re-
member the pain and trembling wherewith on the first
" Sacrament Sunday " after my return I rose and left
the church. That the vicar's wife should " communi-
cate " was as much a matter of course as that the vicar
should " administer " ; I had never done anything in
public that would draw attention to me, and a feeling
of deadly sickness nearly overcame me as I made my
exit, conscious that every eye was on me, and that my
non-participation would be the cause of unending com-
ment. As a matter of fact, every one naturally thought
I was taken suddenly ill, and I was overwhelmed with
calls and inquiries. To any direct question I answered
quietly that I was unable to take part in the profession
of faith required by an honest communicant, but the
statement was rarely necessary, as the idea of heresy in
a vicar's wife is slow to suggest itself to the ordinary
bucolic mind, and I proffered no information where no
question was asked.

It happened that, shortly after that (to me) memor-

THE STORM OF DOUBT 115

able Christmas of 1872, a sharp epidemic of typhoid
fever broke out in the village of Sibsey. The drainage
there was of the most primitive type, and the contagion
spread rapidly. Naturally fond of nursing, I found in
this epidemic work just fitted to my hand, and I was
fortunate enough to be able to lend personal help that
made me welcome in the homes of the stricken poor.
The mothers who slept exhausted while I watched
beside their darlings' bedsides will never, I like to
fancy, think over-harshly of the heretic whose hand
was as tender and often more skilful than their own. I
think Mother Nature meant me for a nurse, for I take
a sheer delight in nursing any one, provided only that
there is peril in the sickness, so that there is the strange
and solemn feeling of the struggle between the human
skill one wields and the supreme enemy. Death. There
is a strange fascination in fighting Death, step by step,
and this is of course felt to the full where one fights for
life as life, and not for a life one loves. When the
patient is beloved the struggle is touched with agony,
but where one fights with Death over the body of a
stranger there is a weird enchantment in the contest
without personal pain, and as one forces back the hated
foe there is a curious triumph in the feeling which
marks the death-grip yielding up its prey, as one
snatches back to earth the life which had well-nigh
perished.

The spring of 1873 brought me knowledge of a
power that was to mould much of my future life. I
delivered my first lecture, but delivered it to rows of
empty pews in Sibsey Church. A queer whim took me

ii6 ANNIE BESANT.

that I would like to know how " it felt " to preach, and
vague fancies stirred in me that I could speak if I had
the chance. I saw no platform in the distance, nor had
any idea of possible speaking in the ftiture dawned upon
me. But the longing to find outlet in words came
upon me, and I felt as though I had something to say
and was able to say it. So locked alone in the great,
silent church, whither I had gone to practise some
organ exercises, I ascended the pulpit steps and
deUvered my first lecture on the Inspiration of the
Bible. I shall never forget the feeling of power and
delight — but especially of power — that came upon me
as I sent my voice ringing down the aisles, and the
passion in me broke into balanced sentences and never
paused for musical cadence or for rhythmical expres-
sion. All I wanted then was to see the church fiill of
upturned faces, alive with throbbing sympathy, instead
of the dreary emptiness of silent pews. And as though
in a dream the solitude was peopled, and I saw the
listening faces and the eager eyes, and as the sentences
flowed unbidden from my lips and my own tones
echoed back to me from the pillars of the ancient
church, I knew of a verity that the gift of speech was
mine, and that if ever-^nd then it seemed so im-
possible ! — if ever the chance came to me of public
work, this power of melodious utterance should at least
win hearing for any message I had to bring.

But the knowledge remained a secret all to my own
self for many a long month, for I quickly felt ashamed
of that foolish speechifying in an empty church ; but,
foolish as it was, I note it here, as it was the first effort

THE STORM OF DOUBT. 117

of that expression in spoken words which later became
to me one of the deepest delights of life. And, indeed,
none can know, save they who have felt it, what joy
there is in the full rush of language that moves and
sways ; to feel a crowd respond to the lightest touch ;
to see the faces brighten or darken at your bidding ; to
know that the sources of human emotion and human
passion gush forth at the word of the speaker as the
stream from the riven rock ; to feel that the thought
which thrills through a thousand hearers has its impulse
from you, and throbs back to you the fuller from a
thousand heart-beats. Is there any emotional joy in
life more brilliant than this, fuller of passionate triumph,
and of the very essence of intellectual delight ?

In 1873 "^y niarriage tie was broken. I took no
new step, but my absence from the Communion led to
some gossip, and a relative of Mr. Besant pressed on
him highly-coloured views of the social and professional
dangers which would accrue if my heresy became
known. My health, never really restored since the
autumn of 1871, grew worse and worse, serious heart
trouble having arisen from the constant strain under
which I lived. At last, in July or August, 1873, the
crisis came. I was told that I must conform to the
outward observances of the Church, and attend the
Communion ; I refused. Then came the distinct
alternative ; conformity or exclusion from home — in
other words, hypocrisy or expulsion. I chose the
latter.

A bitterly sad time followed. My dear mother was
heart-broken. To her, with her wide and vague form

Ii8 ANNIE BESANT.

of Christianity, loosely held, the intensity of my feeling.
•mat where Idid not oelieve I would not pretendhgijyif
was ii'itmnpreliehSlljTe. SlieTecognised far more fully
than I did all that a separation from my home meant
for me, and the difHculties that would surround a young
woman, not yet twenty-six, living alone. She knew how
brutally the world judges, and how the mere fact that a
woman was young and alone justified any coarseness of
slander. Then I did not guess how cruel men and
women could be, how venomous their tongues ; now,
knowing it, having faced slander and lived it down, I
deliberately say that were the choice again before me I
would choose as I chose then ; I would rather go
through it all again than live *' in Society " under the
burden of an acted lie.

The hardest struggle was against my mother's tears
and pleading ; to cause her pain was tenfold pain to
me. Against harshness I had been rigid as steel, but it
was hard to remain steadfast when my darling mother,
whom I loved as I loved nothing else on earth, threw
herself on her knees before me, imploring me to yield.
It seemed like a crime to bring such anguish on her ;
and I felt as a murderer as the snowy head was pressed
against my knees. And yet — to live a lie .'' Not even
for her was that shame possible ; in that worst crisis of
blinding agony my will clung fast to Truth, And it
is true now as it ever was that he who loves father or
mother better than Truth is not worthy of her, and the
flint-strewn path of honesty is the way to Light and
Peace.

Then there were the children, the two little ones

THE STORM OF DOUBT. 119

who worshipped me, who was to them mother, nurse,
and playfellow. Were they, too, demanded at my
hands ? Not wholly — for a time. Facts which I need
not touch on here enabled my brother to obtain for me
a legal separation, and when everything was arranged,
I found myself guardian of my little daughter, and
possessor of a small monthly income sufficient for
respectable starvation. With a great price I had
obtained my freedom, but — I was free. Home,
friends, social position, were the price demanded and
paid, and, being free, I wondered what to do with my
freedom. I could have had a home with my brother
if I would give up my heretical friends and keep quiet,
but I had no mind to put my limbs into fetters again,
and in my youthful inexperience I determined to find
something to do. The difficulty was the " something,"
and I spent various shillings in agencies, with a quite
wonderful unanimity of failures. I tried fancy needle-
work, offered to " ladies in reduced circumstances,"
and earned 4s. 6d. by some weeks of stitching. I
experimented with a Birmingham firm, who generously
offered every one the opportunity of adding to their
incomes, and on sending the small fee demanded, re-
ceived a pencil-case, with an explanation that I was to
sell little articles of that description, going as far as
cruet-stands, to my friends. I did not feel equal to
springing pencil-cases and cruet-stands on my acquain-
tances, so did not enter on that line of business, and
similar failures in numerous efforts made me feel, as so
many others have found, that the world-oyster is hard
to open. However, I was resolute to build a nest for

120 ANNIE BESANT.

my wee daughter, my mother, and myself, and the first
thing to do was to save my monthly pittance to buy
furniture. I found a tiny house in Colby Road, Upper
Norwood, near the Scotts, who were more than good
to me, and arranged to take it in the spring, and then
accepted a loving invitation to Folkestone, where my
grandmother and two aunts were living, to look for
work there. And found it. The vicar wanted a
governess, and one of my aunts suggested me as a stop-
gap, and thither I went with my little Mabel, our board
and lodging being payment for my work. I became
head cook, governess, and nurse, glad enough to have
found " something to do " that enabled me to save my
little income. But I do not think I will ever take to
cooking for a permanence ; broiling and frying are all
right, and making pie-crust is rather pleasant ; but
saucepans and kettles blister your hands. There is a
charm in making a stew, to the unaccustomed cook,
from the excitement of wondering what the result will
be, and whether any flavour save that of onions will
survive the competition in the mixture. On the whole,
my cooking (strictly by cookery book) was a success,
but my sweeping was bad, for I lacked muscle. This
curious episode came to an abrupt end, for one of my
little pupils fell ill with diphtheria, and 1 was trans-
formed from . cook to nurse. Mabel I despatched to
her grandmother, who adored her with a love con-
descendingly returned by the little fairy of three, and
never was there a prettier picture than the red-gold
curls nestled against the white, the baby-grace in
exquisite contrast with the worn stateliness of her

THE STORM OF DOUBT. 121

tender nurse. Scarcely was my little patient out of
danger when the youngest boy fell ill of scarlet fever ;
we decided to isolate him on the top floor, and I cleared
away carpets and curtains, hung sheets over the door-
ways and kept them wet with chloride of lime, shut
myself up there with the boy, having my meals left
on the landing ; and when all risk was over, proudly
handed back my charge, the disease touching no one
else in the house.

And now the spring of 1874 had come, and in a few
weeks my mother and I were to set up house together.
How we had planned all, and had knitted on the new
life together we anticipated to the old one we remem-
bered ! How we had discussed Mabel's education, and
the share which should fall to each 1 Day-dreams ;
day-dreams ! never to be realised.

My mother went up to town, and In a week or two
I received a telegram, saying she was dangerously ill,
and as fast as express train would take me I was beside
her. Dying, the doctor said; three days she might
live — no more. I told her the death-sentence, but she
said resolutely, " I do not feel that I am going to die
just yet," and she was right. There was an attack of
fearful prostration — the valves of the heart had failed
— a very wrestling with Death, and then the grim
shadow drew backwards. I nursed her day and night
with a very desperation of tenderness, for now Fate
had touched the thing dearest to me in life. A second
horrible crisis came, and for the second time her tenacity
and my love beat back the death-stroke. She did not
wish to die, the love of life was strong in her ; I would;

122 ANNIE BESANT.

not let her die ; between us we kept the- foe at bay.
Then dropsy supervened, and the end loomed slowly
sure.

It was then, after eighteen months* abstention, that
I took the Sacrament for the last time. My mother
had an intense longing to communicate before she died,
but absolutely refused to do so unless I took it with
her. " If it be necessary to salvation," she persisted,
doggedly, " I will not take it if darling Annie is to be
shut out. I would rather be lost with her than saved
without her." I went to a clergyman I knew well,
and laid the case before him ; as I expected, he refused
to allow me to communicate. I tried a second, with
the same result. At last a thought struck me. There
was Dean Stanley, my mother's favourite, a man known
to be of the broadest school within the Church of Eng-
land ; suppose I asked him .'' I did not know him, and
I felt the request would be an impertinence ; but there
was just the chance that he might consent, and what
would I not do to make my darling's death-bed easier ?
I said nothing to any one, but set out to the Deanery,
Westminster, timidly asked for the Dean, and followed
the servant upstairs with a sinking heart. I was left
for a moment alone in the library, and then the Dean
came in. I don't think I ever in my life felt more
intensely uncomfortable than I did in that minute's
interval as he stood waiting for me to speak, his clear,
grave, piercing eyes gazing questioningly into mine.

Very falteringly — it must have been very clumsily —
I preferred my request, stating boldly, with abrupt
honesty, that I was not a Christian, that my mother

THE STORM OF DOUBT. 123

was dying, that she was fretting to take the Sacrament,
that she would not take it unless I took it with her,
that two clergymen had refused to allow me to take
part in the service, that I had come to him in despair,
feeling how great was the intrusion, but — she was
dying.

His face changed to a great softness. " You were
quite right to come to me," he answered, in that low,
musical voice of his, his keen gaze having altered into
one no less direct, but marvellously gentle. " Of course
I will go and see your mother, and I have little doubt
that, if you will not mind talking over your position
with me, we may see our way clear to doing as your
mother wishes."

I could barely speak my thanks, so much did the
kindly sympathy move me ; the revulsion from the
anxiety and fear of rebuff was strong enough to be
almost pain. But Dean Stanley did more than I asked.
He suggested that he should call that afternoon, and
have a quiet chat with my mother, and then come again
on the following day to administer the Sacrament.

"A stranger's presence is always trying to a sick
person," he said, with rare delicacy of thought, " and,
joined to the excitement of the service, it might be too
much for your dear mother. If I spend half an hour
with her to-day, and administer the Sacrament to-
morrow, it will, I think, be better for her."

So Dean Stanley came that afternoon, all the way to
Brompton, and remained talking with my mother for
about half an hour, and then set himself to understand
my own position. He finally told me that conduct

124 ANNIE BESANT.

was far more important than theory, and that he re-
garded all as " Christians " who recognised and tried
to follow the moral law of Christ. On the question of
the absolute Deity of Jesus he laid but little stress ;
Jesus was " in a special sense the Son of God," but it
was folly to quarrel over words with only human mean-
ings when dealing with the mystery of the Divine
existence, and, above all, it was folly to make such
words into dividing walls between earnest souls. The
one important matter was the recognition of " duty to
God and man," and all who were one in that recogni-
tion might rightfully join in an act of worship, the
essence of which was not acceptance of dogma, but
love of God and self-sacrifice for man. " The Holy
Communion," he concluded, in his soft tones, "was
never meant to divide from each other hearts that are
searching after the one true God. It was meant by its
founder as a symbol of unity, not of strife."

On the following day Dean Stanley celebrated the
Holy Communion by the bedside of my dear mother,
and well was I repaid for the struggle it had cost me
to ask so great a kindness from a stranger, when I saw
the comfort that gentle, noble heart had given to her.
He soothed away all her anxiety about my heresy with
tactful wisdom, bidding her have no fear of differences
of opinion where the heart was set on truth. " Remem-
ber," she told me he said to her — " remember that our
God is the God of truth, and that therefore the honest
search for truth can never be displeasing in His eyes."

Once again after that he came, and after his visit to
my mother we had another long talk. 1 ventured to

THE STORM OF DOUBT. 125

ask him, the conversation having turned that way, how,
with views so broad as his, he found it possible to
remain in communion with the Church of England.
" I think," he answered, gently, " that I am of more
service to true religion by remaining in the Church and
striving to widen its boundaries from within, than if I
left it and worked from without." And he went on
to explain how, as Dean of Westminster, he was in a
rarely independent position, and could make the Abbey
of a wider national service than would otherwise be
possible. In all he said on this his love for and his
pride in the glorious Abbey were manifest, and it was
easy to see that old historical associations, love of music,
of painting, of stately architecture, were the bonds that
held him bound to the " old historic Church of Eng-
land." His emotions, not his intellect, kept him
Churchman, and he shrank, with the over-sensitiveness
of the cultured scholar, from the idea of allowing the
old traditions to be handled roughly by inartistic hands.
Naturally of a refined and delicate nature, he had been
rendered yet more exquisitely sensitive by the training
of the college and the court ; the polished courtesy of
his manners was but the natural expression of a noble
and lofty mind — a mind whose very gentleness some-
times veiled its strength. I have often heard Dean
Stanley harshly spoken of, I have heard his honesty
roughly challenged ; but never has he been attacked in
my presence that I have not uttered my protest against
the injustice done him, and thus striven to repay some
small fraction of that great debt of gratitude which I
shall ever owe his memory.

126 ANNIE BESANT

And now the end came swiftly. I had hurriedly
furnished a couple of rooms in the little house, now
ours, that I might take my mother into the purer air of
Norwood, and permission was given to drive her down
in an invalid carriage. The following evening she was
suddenly taken worse ; we lifted her into bed, and
telegraphed for the doctor. But he could do nothing,
and she herself felt that the hand of Death had gripped
her. Selfless to the last, she thought but for my loneli-
ness. " I am leaving you alone," she sighed from time
to time ; and truly I felt, with an anguish I did not
dare to realise, that when she died I should indeed be
alone on earth.

For two days longer she was with me, my beloved,
and I never left her side for five minutes. On May loth
the weakness passed into gentle delirium, but even then
the faithful eyes followed me about the room, until at
length they closed for ever, and as the sun sank low in
the heavens, the breath came slower and slower, till the
silence of Death came down upon us and she was gone.

Stunned and dazed with the loss, I went mechanically
through the next few days. I would have none touch
my dead save myself and her favourite sister, who was
with us at the last. Cold and dry-eyed I remained,
even when they hid her from me with the coffin-lid,
even all the dreary way to Kensal Green where her
husband and her baby-son were sleeping, and when we
left her alone in the chill earth, damp with the rains of
spring. I could not believe that our day-dream was
dead and buried, and the home in ruins ere yet it was
fairly built. Truly, my " house was left unto me

THE STORM OF DOUBT. 127

desolate," and the rooms, filled with sunshine but un-
lighted bjr her presence, seemed to echo from their bare
walls, " You are all alone."

But my little daughter was there, and her sweet face
and dancing feet broke the solitude, while her imperious
claims for love and tendance forced me into attention
to the daily needs of life. And life was hard in those
days of spring and summer, resources small, and work
difficult to find. In truth, the two months after my
mother's death were the dreariest my life has known,
and they were months of tolerably hard struggle. The
little house in Colby Road taxed my slender resources
heavily, and the search for work was not yet successful.
I do not know how I should have managed but for the
help ever at hand, of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Scott.
During this time I wrote for Mr. Scott pamphlets
on Inspiration, Atonement, Mediation and Salvation,
Eternal Torture, Religious Education of Children,
Natural v. Revealed Religion, and the few guineas
thus earned were very valuable. Their house, too, was
always open to me, and this was no small help, for often
in those days the little money I had was enough to buy
food for two but not enough to buy it for three, and I
would go out and study all day at the British Museum, so
as to " have my dinner in town," the said dinner being
conspicuous by its absence. If I was away for two
evenings running fi-om the hospitable house in the
terrace, Mrs. Scott would come down to see what had
happened, and many a time the supper there was of
real physical value to me. Well might I write, in
1879, when Thomas Scott lay dead : " It was Thonjas

128 ANNIE BESANT.

Scott whose house was open to me when my need was
sorest, and he never knew, this generous, noble heart,
how sometimes, when I went in, weary and overdone,
from a long day's study in the British Museum, with
scarce food to struggle through the day — he never
knew how his genial, ' Well, little lady,' in welcoming
tone, cheered the then utter loneliness of my life.
To no living man — save one — do I owe the debt
of gratitude that I owe to Thomas Scott."

The small amount of jewellery I possessed, and all
my superfluous clothes, were turned into more necessary
articles, and the child, at least, never sufi^ered a solitary
touch of want. My servant Mary was a wonderful con-
triver, and kept house on the very slenderest funds that
could be put into a servant's hands, and she also made
the little place so bright and fresh-looking that it was
always a pleasure to go into it. Recalling those days of
" hard living," I can now look on them without regret.
More, I am glad to have passed through them, for they
have taught me how to sympathise with those who are
struggling as I struggled then, and I never can hear the
words fall from pale lips, " I am hungry," without
remembering how painful a thing hunger is, and with-
out curing that pain, at least for the moment.

The presence of the child was good for me, keeping
alive my aching, lonely heart : she would play con-
tentedly for hours while I was working, a word now
and again being enough for happiness ; when I had to
go out without her, she would run to the door with me,
and the *' good-bye " would come from down-curved
lips ; she was ever watching at the window for my

THE STORM OF DOUBT. 129

return, and the sunny face was always the first to
welcome me home. Many and many a time have I
been coming home, weary, hungry, and heart-sick, and
the glimpse of the little face watching has reminded me
that I must not carry in a grave face to sadden my
darling, and the effort to throw off the depression for
her sake threw it off altogether, and brought back the
sunshine. She was the sweetness and joy of my life,
my curly-headed darling, with her red-gold hair and
glorious eyes, and passionate, wilful, loving nature.
The torn, bruised tendrils of my heart gradually twined
round this little life ; she gave something to love and
to tend, and thus gratified one of the strongest impulses
of my nature.

CHAPTER VI.

CHARLES BRADLAUGH.

DURING all these months the intellectual life had
not stood still ; I was slowly, cautiously feeling
my way onward. And in the intellectual and social
side of my life I found a delight unknown in the
old days of bondage. First, there was the joy of
freedom, the joy of speaking out frankly and honestly
each thought. Truly, I had a right to say : " With
a great price obtained I this freedom," and having paid
the price, I revelled in the liberty I had bought. Mr.
Scott's valuable library was at my service ; his keen
brain challenged my opinions, probed my assertions,
and suggested phases of thought hitherto untouched.
I studied harder than ever, and the study now was
unchecked by any fear of possible consequences. I
had nothing left of the old faith save belief in " a
God," and that began slowly to melt away. The
Theistic axiom : " If there be a God at all He must
be at least as good as His highest creature," began with
an *'if," and to that "if" I turned my attention.
*' Of all impossible things," writes Miss Frances Power

Cobbe, " the most impossible must surely be that a

X31

132 ANNIE BESANT.

man should dream something of the good and the
noble, and that it should prove at last that his Creator
was less good and less noble than he had dreamed."
But, I questioned, are we sure that there is a Creator ?
Granted that, if there is. He must be above His highest
creature, but — is there such a being ? " The ground,"
says the Rev. Charles Voysey, " on which our belief
in God rests is man. Man, parent of Bibles and
Churches, inspirer of all good thoughts and good
deeds. Man, the masterpiece of God's thought on
earth. Man, the text-book of all spiritual knowledge.
Neither miraculous nor infallible, man is nevertheless
the only trustworthy record of the Divine mind in
things pertaining to God. Man's reason, conscience,
and affections are the only true revelation of his
Maker." But what if God were only man's own
image reflected in the mirror of man's mind ? What
if man were the creator, not the revelation of his God ?

It was inevitable that such thoughts should arise after
the more palpably indefensible doctrines of Christianity
had been discarded. Once encourage the human mind
to think, and bounds to the thinking can never again
be set by authority. Once challenge traditional
beliefs, and the challenge will ring on every shield
which is hanging in the intellectual arena. Around
me was the atmosphere of conflict, and, freed from its
long repression, my mind leapt up to share in the strife
with a joy in the intellectual tumult, the intellectual
strain.

I often attended South Place Chapel, where Moncure
D. Conway was then preaching, and discussion with

CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 133

him did something towards widening my views on the
deeper religious problems ; I re-read Dean Mansel's
" Bampton Lectures," and they did much towards
turning me in the direction of Atheism ; I re-read
Mill's " Examination of Sir William Hamilton's
Philosophy," and studied carefully Comte's "Philo-
sophic Positive." Gradually I recognised the limita-
tions of human intelligence and its incapacity for
understanding the nature of God, presented as infinite
and absolute ; I had given up the use of prayer as a
blasphemous absurdity, since an all-wise God could not
need my suggestions,, nor an all-good God require my
promptings. But God fades out of the daily life of
those who never pray ; a personal God who is not a
Providence is a superfluity ; when from the heaven
does not smile a listening Father, it soon becomes an
empty space, whence resounds no echo of man's cry. I
could then reach no loftier conception of the Divine
than that offered by the orthodox, and that broke
hopelessly away as I analysed it.

At last I said to Mr. Scott, " Mr. Scott, may I write
a tract on the nature and existence of God ? "

He glanced at me keenly. " Ah, little lady, you are
facing, then, that problem at last ? I thought it must
come. Write away."

While this pamphlet was in MS. an event occurred
which coloured all my succeeding life. I met Charles
Bradlaugh.

One day in the late spring, talking with Mrs.
Conway — one of the sweetest and steadiest natures
whom it has been my lot to meet, and to whom, as

134 ANNIE BESANT.

to her husband, I owe much for kindness generously
shown when I was poor and had but few friends —
she asked me if I had been to the Hall of Science,
Old Street. I answered, with the stupid, ignorant
reflection of other people's prejudices so sadly common,
" No, I have never been there. Mr. Bradlaugh is
rather a rough sort of speaker, is he not ? "

"He is the finest speaker of Saxon-English that I
have ever heard," she answered, " except, perhaps, John
Bright, and his power over a crowd is something
marvellous. Whether you agree with him or not, you
should hear him."

In the following July I went into the shop of Mr.
Edward Truelove, 256, High Holborn, in search ot
some Comtist publications, having come across his
name as a publisher in the course of my study at the
British Museum. On the counter was a copy of the
National Reformer^ and, attracted by the title, I bought
it. I read it placidly in the omnibus on my way to
Victoria Station, and found it excellent, and was sent
into convulsions of inward merriment when, glancing
up, I saw an old gentleman gazing at me, with horror
speaking from every line of his countenance. To see
a young woman, respectably dressed in crape, reading
an Atheistic journal, had evidently upset his peace of
mind, and he looked so hard at the paper that I was
tempted to offer it to him, but repressed the mischievous
inclination.

This first copy of the paper with which I was to be
so closely connected bore date July 19, 1874, and
contained two long letters from a Mr. Arnold of

CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 135

Northampton, attacking Mr. Bradlaugh, and a brief
and singularly self-restrained answer from the latter.
There was also an article on the National Secular
Society, which made me aware that there was an
organisation devoted to the propagandism of Free
Thought. I felt that if such a society existed, I ought
to belong to it, and I consequently wrote a short note
to the editor of the National Reformer^ asking whether
it was necessary for a person to profess Atheism before
being admitted to the Society. The answer appeared
in the National Reformer : —

"S. E. — To be a member of the National Secular
Society it is only necessary to be able honestly to accept
the four principles, as given in the National Reformer
of June 14th. This any person may do without being
required to avow himself an Atheist. Candidly, we
can see no logical resting-place between the entire
acceptance of authority, as in the Roman Catholic
Church, and the most extreme Rationalism, If, on
again looking to the Principles of the Society, you can
accept them, we repeat to you our invitation."

I sent my name in as an active member, and find it
is recorded in the National Reformer of August 9th.
Having received an intimation that Londoners could
receive their certificates at the Hall of Science from
Mr. Bradlaugh on any Sunday evening, I betook my-
self thither, and it was on August 2, 1874, that I first
set foot in a Freethought hall.

The Hall was crowded to suffocation, and, at the
very moment announced for the lecture, a roar of
cheering burst forth, a tall figure passed swiftly up

136 Annie besant.

the Hall to the platform, and, with a slight bow in
answer to the voluminous greeting, Charles Bradlaugh
took his seat. I looked at him with interest, impressed
and surprised. The grave, quiet, stern, strong face,
the massive head, the keen eyes, the magnificent breadth
and height of forehead — was this the man I had heard
described as a blatant agitator, an ignorant demagogue ?

He began quietly and simply, tracing out the resem-
blances between the Krishna and the Christ myths, and
as he went from point to point his voice grew in force
and resonance, till it rang round the hall like a trumpet.
Familiar with the subject, I could test the value of his
treatment of it, and saw that his knowledge was as
sound as his language was splendid. Eloquence, fire,
sarcasm, pathos, passion, all in turn were bent against
Christian superstition, till the great audience, carried
away by the torrent of the orator's force, hung silent,
breathing soft, as he went on, till the silence that followed
a magnificent peroration broke the spell, and a hurricane
of cheers relieved the tension.

He came down the Hall with some certificates in his
hand, glanced round, and handed me mine with a
questioning " Mrs. Besant ? " Then he said, referring
to my question as to a profession of Atheism, that he
would willingly talk over the subject of Atheism with
me if I would make an appointment, and offered me a
book he had been using in his lecture. Long afterwards
I asked him how he knew me, whom he had never
seen, that he came straight to me in such fashion. He
laughed and. said he did not know, but, glancing over
the faces, he felt sure that I was Annie Besant.

CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 137

From that first meeting in the Hall of Science dated
a friendship that lasted unbroken till Death severed the
earthly bond, and that to me stretches through Death's
gateway and links us together still. As friends, not as
strangers, we met — swift recognition, as it were, leaping
from eye to eye ; and I know now that the instinctive
friendliness was in very truth an outgrowth of strong
friendship in other Fives, and that on that August day
we took up again an ancient tie, we did not begin a
new one. And so in lives to come we shall meet again,
and help each other as we helped each other in this.
And let me here place on record, as I have done before,
some word of what I owe him for his true friendship ;
though, indeed, how great is my debt to him I can
never tell. Some of his wise phrases have ever remained
in my memory. " You should never say you have an
opinion on a subject until you have tried to study the
strongest things said against the view to which you are
inclined." " You must not think you know a subject
until you are acquainted with all that the best mmds
have said about it." *' No steady work can be done
in public unless the worker study at home far more
than he talks outside." "Be your own harshest judge ,
listen to your own speech and criticise it ; read abuse
of yourself and see what grains of truth are in it."
" Do not waste time by reading opinions that are mere
echoes of your own ; read opinions you disagree with,
and you will catch aspects of truth you do not readily
see." Through our long comradeship he was my
sternest as well as gentlest critic, pointing out to me
that in a party like ours, where our own education and

138 ANNIE BESANT.

knowledge were above those whom we led, it was
very easy to gain indiscriminate praise and unstinted
admiration ; on the other hand, we received from
Christians equally indiscriminate abuse and hatred.
It was, therefore, needful that we should be our own
harshest judges, and that we should be sure that we
knew thoroughly every subject that we taught. He
saved me from the superficiality that my " fiital facility"
of speech might so easily have induced ; and when I
began to taste the intoxication of easily won applause,
his criticism of weak points, his challenge of weak
arguments, his trained judgment, were of priceless
service to me, and what of value there is in my work
is very largely due to his influence, which at once
stimulated and restrained.

One very charming characteristic of his was his
extreme courtesy in private life, especially to women.
This outward polish, which sat so gracefully on his
massive frame and stately presence, was foreign rather
than English — for the English, as a rule, save such as
go to Court, are a singularly unpolished people — and
it gave his manner a peculiar charm. I asked him
once where he had learned his gracious fashions that
were so un-English — he would stand with uplifted hat
as he asked a question of a maidservant, or handed a
woman into a carriage — and he answered, with a half-
smile, half-scoff, that it was only in England he was an
outcast from society. In France, in Spain, in Italy, he
was always welcomed among men and women of the
highest social rank, and he supposed that he had
unconsciously caught the foreign tricks of manner.

CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 139

Moreover, he was absolutely indifferent to all ques-
tions of social position ; peer or artisan, it was to him
exactly the same ; he never seemed conscious of the
distinctions of which men make so much.

Our first conversation, after the meeting at the Hall
of Science, took place a day or two later in his little
study in 29, Turner Street, Commercial Road, a wee
room overflowing with books, in which he looked
singularly out of place. Later I learned that he had
failed in business in consequence of Christian persecu-
tion, and, resolute to avoid bankruptcy, he had sold
everything he possessed, save his books, had sent his
wife and daughters to live in the country with his
father-in-law, had taken two tiny rooms in Turner
Street, where he could live for a mere trifle, and had
bent himself to the task of paying oflF the liabilities he
had incurred — incurred in consequence of his battling
for political and religious liberty. I took with me my
MS. essay " On the Nature and Existence of God," and
it served as the basis for our conversation ; we found
there was little difi"erence in our views. *' You have
thought yourself into Atheism without knowing it,"
he said, and all that I changed in the essay was the
correction of the vulgar error that the Atheist says
" there is no God," by the insertion of a passage
disclaiming this position from an essay pointed out
to me by Mr. Bradlaugh. And at this stage of my
life-story, it is necessary to put very clearly the position
I took up and held so many years as Atheist, because
otherwise the further evolution into Theosophist will
be wholly incomprehensible. It will lead me into

140 ANNIE BESANT.

metaphysics, and to some readers these are dry, but if
any one would understand the evolution of a Soul he
must be willing to face the questions which the Soul
faces in its growth. And the position of the philosophic
Atheist is so misunderstood that it is the more necessary
to put it plainly, and Theosophists, at least, in reading
it, will see how Theosophy stepped in finally as a
further evolution towards knowledge, rendering rational,
and therefore acceptable, the loftiest spirituality that the
human mind can as yet conceive.

In order that I may not colour my past thinkings by
my present thought, I take my statements from pam-
phlets written when I adopted the Atheistic philosophy
and while I continued an adherent thereof. No charge
can then be made that I have softened my old opinions
for the sake of reconciling them with those now held.

CHAPTER VIT.

ATHEISM AS I KNEW AND TAUGHT IT.

THE first step which leaves behind the idea of a
limited and personal God, an extra-cosmic Creator,
and leads the student to the point whence Atheism and
Pantheism diverge, is the recognition that a profound
unity of substance underlies the infinite diversities of
natural phenomena, the discernment of the One beneath
the Many. This was the step I had taken ere my first
meeting with Charles Bradlaugh, and I had written : —
" It is manifest to all who will take the trouble to
think steadily, that there can be only one eternal and
underived substance, and that matter and spirit must,
therefore, only be varying manifestations of this one
substance. The distinction made between matter and
spirit is, then, simply made for the sake of convenience
and clearness, just as we may distinguish perception
from judgment, both of which, however, are alike pro-
cesses of thought. Matter is, in its constituent elements,
the same as spirit ; existence is onCy however manifold
in its phenomena ; life is one, however multiform in its
evolution. As the heat of the coal differs from the coal

142 ANNIE BESANT.

itself, so do memory, perception, judgment, emotion,
and will differ from the brain which is the instrument
of thought. But nevertheless they are all equally pro-
ducts of the one sole substance, varying only in their
conditions. ... I find myself, then, compelled to believe
that one only substance exists in all around me ; that
the universe is eternal, or at least eternal so far as our
faculties are concerned, since we cannot, as some one
has quaintly put it, * get to the outside of everywhere ' ;
that a Deity cannot be conceived of as apart from the
universe ; that the Worker and the Work are inex-
tricably interwoven, and in some sense eternally and
indissolubly combined. Having got so far, we will
proceed to examine into the possibility of proving the
existence of that one essence popularly called by the
name of God, under the conditions strictly defined by
the orthodox. Having demonstrated, as I hope to do,
that the orthodox idea of God is unreasonable and
absurd, we will endeavour to ascertain whether any idea
of God, worthy to be called an idea, is attainable in the
present state of our faculties." " The Deity must of
necessity be that one and only substance out of which
all things are evolved, under the uncreated conditions
and eternal laws of the universe ; He must be, as
Theodore Parker somewhat oddly puts it, ' the mate-
riality of matter as well as the spirituality of spirit ' —
i.e., these must both be products of this one substance ;
a truth which is readily accepted as soon as spirit and
matter are seen to be but different modes of one essence.
Thus we identify substance with the all-comprehending
and vivifying force of nature, and in so doing we simply

ATHEISM AS I KNEW AND TAUGHT IT. 143

reduce to a physical impossibility the existence of the
Being described by the orthodox as a God possessing
the attributes of personality. The Deity becomes
identified with nature, co-extensive with the universe,
but the God of the orthodox no longer exists ; we may
change the signification of God, and use the word to
express a different idea, but we can no longer mean by
it a Personal Being in the orthodox sense, possessing an
individuality which divides Him from the rest of the
universe." ^

Proceeding to search whether any idea of God was
attainable, I came to the conclusion that evidence of
the existence of a conscious Power was lacking, and
that the ordinary proofs offered were inconclusive; that
we could grasp phenomena and no more. " There
appears, also, to be a possibility of a mind in nature,
though we have seen that intelligence is, strictly speak-
ing, impossible. There cannot be perception, memory,
comparison, or judgment, but may there not be a
perfect mind, unchanging, calm, and still ? Our
faculties fail us when we try to estimate the Deity,
and we are betrayed into contradictions and absurdities ;
but does it therefore follow that He is not? It seems
to me that to deny His existence is to overstep the
boundaries of our thought-power almost as much as to
try and define it. We pretend to know the Unknown
if we declare Him to be the Unknowable. Unknow-
able to us at present, yes ! Unknowable for ever, in
other possible stages of existence? We have reached a
region into which we cannot penetrate ; here all human
* "On the Nature and Existence of God." 1874,

144 ANNIE BESANT.

faculties fail us ; we bow our heads on 'the threshold
of the unknown.'

"'And the ear of man cannot hear, and the eye of man cannot see,
But if we could see and hear, this vision — were it not He ? '

Thus sings Alfred Tennyson, the poet of metaphysics :
* // we could see and hear.' Alas ! it is always an
*if'!"i

This refusal to believe without evidence, and the
declaration that anything " behind phenomena " is
unknowable to man as at present constituted — these
are the two chief planks of the Atheistic platform, as
Atheism was held by Charles Bradlaugh and myself.
In 1876 this position was clearly reaffirmed. "It is
necessary to put briefly the Atheistic position, for no
position is more continuously and more persistently
misrepresented. Atheism is without God. It does
not assert no God. * The Atheist does not say " There
is no God," but he says, " I know not what you mean
by God ; I am without idea of God ; the word God is
to me a sound conveying no clear or distinct affirma-
tion. I do not deny God, because I cannot deny that
of which I have no conception, and the conception of
which, by its affirmer, is so imperfect that he is unable
to define it to me." ' (Charles Bradlaugh, " Freethinker's
Text-book," p. 118.) The Atheist neither affirms nor
denies the possibility of phenomena differing from those
recognised by human experience. ... As his know-
ledge of the universe is extremely limited and very
imperfect, the Atheist declines either to deny or to
» "On the Nature and Existence of God." 1874.

ATHEISM AS I KNEW AND TAUGHT IT. 145

affirm anything with regard to modes of existence of
which he knows nothing. Further, he refuses to
believe anything concerning that of which he knows
nothing, and affirms that that which can never be the
subject of knowledge ought never to be the object of
belief. While the Atheist, then, neither affirms nor
denies the unknown, he does deny all which conflicts
with the knowledge to which he has already attained.
For example, he knows that one is one, and that three
times one are three ; he denies that three times one are,
or can be, one. The position of the Atheist is a clear
and a reasonable one : I know nothing about * God,'
and therefore I do not believe in Him or in it ; what
you tell me about your God is self-contradictory, and is
therefore incredible. I do not deny * God,' which is
an unknown tongue to me ; I do deny your God,
who is an impossibility. I am without God." ^ Up
to 1887 I find myself writing on the same lines :
" No man can rationally affirm * There is no God,'
until the word ' God ' has for him a definite meaning,
and until everything that exists is known to him, and
known with what Leibnitz calls ' perfect knowledge.'
The Atheist's denial of the Gods begins only when
these Gods are defined or described. Never yet has a
God been defined in terms which were not palpably
self-contradictory and absurd ; never yet has a God
been described so that a concept of Him was made pos-
sible to human thought. . . . Nor is anything gained
by the assertors of Deity when they allege that He is
incomprehensible. If 'God' exists and is incompre-

» "The Gospel of Atheism." 1876.
ID

146 ANNIE BESANT.

hensible, His incomprehensibility is an adnjirable reason
for being silent about Him, but can never justify the
affirmation of self-contradictory propositions, and the
threatening of people with damnation if they do not
accept them." ^ " The belief of the Atheist stops
where his evidence stops. He believes in the existence
of the universe, judging the accessible proof thereof to
be adequate, and he finds in this universe sufficient
cause for the happening of all phenomena. He finds
no intellectual satisfaction in placing a gigantic conun-
drum behind the universe, which only adds its own un-
intelligibility to the already sufficiently difficult problem
of existence. Our lungs are not fitted to breathe
beyond the atmosphere which surrounds our globe, and
our faculties cannot breathe outside the atmosphere of
the phenomenal." 2 And I summed up this essay with
the words : "I do not believe in God. My mind finds
no grounds on which to build up a reasonable faith.
My heart revolts against the spectre of an Almighty
Indifference to the pain of sentient beings. My con-
science rebels against the injustice, the cruelty, the
inequality, which surround me on every side. But I
believe in Man. In man's redeeming power; in man's
remoulding energy ; in man's approaching triumph,
through knowledge, love, and work." 3

These views of existence naturally colour all views
of life and of the existence of the Soul. And here
steps in the profound difference between Atheism and
Pantheism ; both posit an Existence at present in-

» " Why I do not Believe in God." 1887.
» Ibid. 3 Ibid.

ATHEISM AS I KNEW AND TAUGHT IT. 147

scrutable by human faculties, of which all phenomena
are modes ; but to the Atheist that Existence manifests
as Force-Matter, unconscious, unintelligent, while to
the Pantheist it manifests as Life-Matter, conscious,
intelligent. To the one, life and consciousness are
attributes, properties, dependent upon arrangements
of matter ; to the other they are fundamental, essen-
tial, and only limited in their manifestation by arrange-
ments of matter. Despite the attraction held for me
in Spinoza's luminous arguments, the over-mastering
sway which Science was beginning to exercise over me
drove me to seek for the explanation of all problems of
life and mind at the hands of the biologist and the
chemist. They had done so much, explained so much,
could they not explain all ? Surely, I thought, the one
safe ground is that of experiment, and the remembered
agony of doubt made me very slow to believe where
I could not prove. So I was fain to regard life as an
attribute, and this again strengthened the Atheistic
position. " Scientifically regarded, life is not an entity
but a property ; it is not a mode of existence, but a
characteristic of certain modes. Life is the result of an
arrangement of matter, and when rearrangement occurs
the former result can no longer be present ; we call the
result of the changed arrangement death. Life and
death are two convenient words for expressing the
general outcome of two arrangements of matter, one of
which is always found to precede the other." ' And
then, having resorted to chemistry for one illustration,
I took another from one of those striking and easily
» "Life, Death, and Immortality." 1886.

148 ANNIE BESANT.

grasped analogies, facility for seeing and presenting
which has ever been one of the secrets of my success as
a propagandist. Like pictures, they impress the mind
of the hearer with a vivid sense of reality. " Every
one knows the exquisite iridiscence of mother-of-pearl,
the tender, delicate hues which melt Into each other,
glowing with soft radiance. How different is the dull,
dead surface of a piece of wax. Yet take that dull,
black wax and mould it so closely to the surface of
the mother-of-pearl that it shall take every delicate
marking of the shell, and when you raise it the seven-
hued glory shall smile at you from the erstwhile colour-
less surface. For, though it be to the naked eye im-
perceptible, all the surface of the mother-of-pearl is in
delicate ridges and furrows, like the surface of a newly-
ploughed field ; and when the waves of light come
dashing up against the ridged surface, they are broken
like the waves on a shingly shore, and are flung back-
wards, so that they cross each other and the oncoming
waves ; and, as every ray of white light is made up of
waves of seven colours, and these waves differ in length
each from the others, the fairy ridges fling them back-
ward separately, and each ray reaches the eye by itself;
so that the colour of the mother-of-pearl is really the
spray of the light waves, and comes from arrangement
of matter once again. Give the dull, black wax the
same ridges and furrows, and its glory shall differ in
nothing from that of the shell. To apply our illustra-
tion : as the colour belongs to one arrangement of
matter and the dead surface to another, so life belongs
to some arrangements of matter and is their resul-

ATHEISM AS I KNEW AND TAUGHT IT. 149

tant, while the resultant of other arrangements is
death." x

The same line of reasoning naturally was applied to
the existence of " spirit " in man, and it was argued
that mental activity, the domain of the " spirit,*' was
dependent on bodily organisation. " When the babe
is born it shows no sign of mind. For a brief space
hunger and repletion, cold and warmth are its only
sensations. Slowly the specialised senses begin to
function ; still more slowly muscular movements,
at first aimless and reflex, become co-ordinated and
consciously directed. There is no sign here of an
intelligent spirit controlling a mechanism ; there is
every sign of a learning and developing intelligence,
developing pari passu with the organism of which it
is a function. As the body grows, the mind grows
with it, and the childish mind of the child develops
into the hasty, quickly-judging, half-informed, un-
balanced youthful mind of the youth ; with maturity
of years comes maturity of mind, and body and mind
are vigorous and in their prime. As old age comes on
and the bodily flinctions decay, the mind decays also,
until age passes into senility, and body and mind sink
into second childhood. Has the immortal spirit
decayed with the organisation, or is it dwelling in
sorrow, bound in its ' house of clay ' ? If this be so,
the ' spirit ' must be unconscious, or else separate from
the very individual whose essence it is supposed to be,
for the old man does not suffer when his mind is senile,
but is contented as a little child. And not only is this
» " Life, Death, and Immortality." 1886.

150 ANNIE BESANT.

constant, simultaneous growth and decay of body and
mind to be observed, but we know that mental
functions are disordered and suspended by various
physical conditions. Alcohol, many drugs, fever, dis-
order the mind ; a blow on the cranium suspends its
functions, and the * spirit * returns with the surgeon's
trepanning. Does the * spirit ' take part in dreams ?
Is it absent from the idiot, from the lunatic ? Is it
guilty of manslaughter when the madman murders, or
does it helplessly watch its own instrument performing
actions at which it shudders ? If it can only work
here through an organism, is its nature changed in its
independent life, severed from all with which it was
identified.'' Can it, in its 'disembodied state,' have
anything in common with its past ? " ^

It will be seen that my unbelief in the existence of
the Soul or Spirit was a matter of cold, calm reasoning.
As I wrote in 1885 : " For many of us evidence must
precede belief. I would gladly believe in a happy
immortality for all, as I would gladly believe that all
misery and crime and poverty will disappear in 1885 —
if I could. But I am unable to believe an improbable
proposition unless convincing evidence is brought in
support of it. Immortality is most improbable ; no
evidence is brought forward in its favour. I cannot
believe only because I wish," 2 Such was the philo-
sophy by which I lived from 1874 to 1886, when first
some researches that will be dealt with in their proper
place, and which led me ultimately to the evidence

* "Life, Death, and Immortality." 1886.
« Ibid.

ATHEISM AS 1 KNEW AND TAUGHT IT. 151

I had before vainly demanded, began to shake my
confidence in its adequacy. Amid outer storm and
turmoil and conflict, I found it satisfy my intellect,
while lofty ideals of morality fed my emotions. I
called myself Atheist, and rightly so, for I was without
God, and my horizon was bounded by life on earth;
I gloried in the name then, as it is dear to my heart
now, for all the associations with which it is connected.
" Atheist is one of the grandest titles a man can
wear ; it is the Order of Merit of the world's heroes.
Most great discoverers, most deep-thinking philo-
sophers, most earnest reformers, most toiling pioneers
of progress, have in their turn had flung at them the
name of Atheist. It was howled over the grave of
Copernicus ; it was clamoured round the death-pile of
Bruno ; it was yelled at Vanini, at Spinoza, at Priestley,
at Voltaire, at Paine ; it has become the laurel-bay of
the hero, the halo of the martyr ; in the world's
history it has meant the pioneer of progress, and
where the cry of ' Atheist ' is raised there may we be
sure that another step is being taken towards the
redemption of humanity. The saviours of the world
are too often howled at as Atheists, and then
worshipped as Deities. The Atheists are the van-
guard of the army of Freethought, on whom falls
the brunt of the battle, and are shivered the hardest
of the blows ; their feet trample down the thorns that
others may tread unwounded ; their bodies fill up the
ditch that, by the bridge thus made, others may pass to
victory. Honour to the pioneers of progress, honour
to the vanguard of Liberty's army, honour to those

152 ANNIE BESANT.

who to improve earth have forgotten heaven, and
who in their zeal for man have forgotten God." ^

This poor sketch of the conception of the universe,
to which I had conquered my way at the cost of so
much pain, and which was the inner centre round which
my life revolved for twelve years, may perhaps show
that the Atheistic Philosophy is misjudged sorely when
it is scouted as vile or condemned as intellectually
degraded. It has outgrown anthropomorphic deities,
and it leaves us face to face with Nature, open to all
her purifying, strengthening inspirations. " There is
only one kind of prayer," it says, " which is reason-
able, and that is the deep, silent adoration of the great-
ness and beauty and order around us, as revealed in the
realms of non-rational life and in Humanity ; as we
bow our heads before the laws of the universe, and
mould our lives into obedience to their voice, we find
a strong, calm peace steal over our hearts, a perfect
trust in the ultimate triumph of the right, a quiet
determination to ' make our lives sublime.' Before our
own high ideals, before those lives which show us ' how
high the tides of Divine life have risen in the human
world,' we stand with hushed voice and veiled face;
from them we draw strength to emulate, and even dare
struggle to excel. The contemplation of the ideal is
true prayer ; it inspires, it strengthens, it ennobles.
The other part of prayer is work ; from contemplation
to labour, from the forest to the street. Study nature's
laws, conform to them, work in harmony with them,
and work becomes a prayer and a thanksgiving, an
«" The Gospel of Atheism." 1876.

ATHEISM AS I KNEW AND TAUGHT IT. 153

adoration of the universal wisdom, and a true obedience
to the universal law." ^

To a woman of my temperament, filled with passion-
ate desire for the bettering of the world, the elevation
of humanity, a lofty system of ethics was of even more
importance than a logical, intellectual conception of the
universe ; and the total loss of all faith in a righteous
God only made me more strenuously assertive of the
binding nature of duty and the overwhelming im-
portance of conduct. In 1874 this conviction found
voice in a pamphlet on the " True Basis of Morality,"
and in all the years of my propaganda on the platform
of the National Secular Society no subject was more
frequently dealt with in my lectures than that of
human ethical growth and the duty of man to man.
No thought was more constantly in my mind than that
of the importance of morals, and it was voiced at the
very outset of my public career. Speaking of the
danger lest ** in these stirring times of inquiry," old
sanctions of right conduct should be cast aside ere new
ones were firmly established, I wrote : " It therefore
becomes the duty of every one who fights in the ranks
of Freethought, and who ventures to attack the
dogmas of the Churches, and to strike down the
superstitions which enslave men's intellect, to beware
how he uproots sanctions of morality which he is too
weak to replace, or how, before he is prepared with
better ones, he removes the barriers which do yet,
however poorly, to some extent check vice and re-
press crime. . . . That which touches morality touches
» "On the Nature and Existence of God." 1874.

154 ANNIE BESANT.

the heart of society ; a high and pure morality is the
life-blood of humanity ; mistakes in belief are in-
evitable, and are of little moment ; mistakes in life
destroy happiness, and their destructive consequences
spread far and wide. It is, then, a very important
question whether we, who are endeavouring to take
away from the world the authority on which has
hitherto been based all its morality, can offer a new
and firm ground whereupon may safely be built up the
fair edifice of a noble life."

I then proceeded to analyse revelation and intuition
as a basis for morals, and, discarding both, I asserted :
*' The true basis of morality is utility ; that is, the
adaptation of our actions to the promotion of the
general welfare and happiness ; the endeavour so to
rule our lives that we may serve and bless mankind."
And I argued for this basis, showing that the effort
after virtue was implied in the search for happiness :
" Virtue is an indispensable part of all true and solid
happiness. . , . But it is, after all, only reasonable that
happiness should be the ultimate test of right and
wrong, if we live, as we do, in a realm of law.
Obedience to law must necessarily result in harmony,
and disobedience in discord. But if obedience to law
result in harmony it must also result in happiness — all
through nature obedience to law results in happiness, and
through obedience each living thing fulfils the per-
fection of its being, and in that perfection finds its
true happiness.*' It seemed to me most important to
remove morality from the controversies about religion,
and to give it a basis of its own : *' As, then, the grave

ATHEISM AS I KNEW AND TAUGHT IT. 155

subject of the existence of Deity is a matter of dispute,
it is evidently of deep importance to society that
morality should not be dragged into this battlefield,
to stand or totter with the various theories of the
Divine nature which human thought creates and
destroys. If we can found morality on a basis apart
from theology, we shall do humanity a service which
can scarcely be overestimated." A study of the facts
of nature, of the consequences of man in society,
seemed sufficient for such a basis. " Our faculties do
not suffice to tell us about God ; they do suffice to
study phenomena, and to deduce laws from correlated
facts. Surely, then, we should do wisely to concentrate
our strength and our energies on the discovery of the
attainable, instead of on the search after the unknow-
able. If we are told that morality consists in obedience
to the supposed will of a supposed perfectly moral being,
because in so doing we please God, then we are at once
placed in a region where our faculties are useless to us,
and where our judgment is at fault. But if we are told
that we are to lead noble lives, because nobility of life
is desirable for itself alone, because in so doing we are
acting in harmony with the laws of Nature, because in
so doing we spread happiness around our pathway and
gladden our fellow-men — then, indeed, motives are
appealed to which spring forward to meet the call, and
chords are struck in our hearts which respond in music
to the touch." It was to the establishment of this
secure basis that I bent my energies, this that was to
me of supreme moment. *' Amid the fervid movement
of society, with its wild theories and crude social

156 ANNIE BESANT.

reforms, with its righteous fury against oppression
and its unconsidered notions of wider freedom and
gladder life, it is of vital importance that morality
should stand on a foundation unshakable ; that so
through all political and religious revolutions human
life may grow purer and nobler, may rise upwards into
settled freedom, and not sink downwards into anarchy.
Only utility can afford us a sure basis, the reasonable-
ness of which will be accepted alike by thoughtful
student and hard-headed artisan. Utility appeals to
all alike, and sets in action motives which are found
equally in every human heart. Well shall it be for
humanity that creeds and dogmas pass away, that
superstition vanishes, and the clear light of freedom
and science dawns on a regenerated earth — but well
only if men draw tighter and closer the links of trust-
worthiness, of honour, and of truth. Equality before
the law is necessary and just ; liberty is the birthright
of every man and woman ; free individual develop-
ment will elevate and glorify the race. But little
worth these priceless jewels, little worth liberty and
equality with all their promise for mankind, little
worth even wider happiness, if that happiness be
selfish, if true fraternity, true brotherhood, do not
knit man to man, and heart to heart, in loyal service
to the common need, and generous self-sacrifice to the
common good." ^

To the forwarding of this moral growth of man, two
things seemed to me necessary — an Ideal which should
stir the emotions and impel to action, and a clear under-

» "The True Basis of Morality." 1874.

ATHEISM AS I KNEW AND TAUGHT IT. 157

standing of the sources of evil and of the methods by
which they might be drained. Into the drawing of the
first I threw all the passion of my nature, striving to
paint the Ideal in colours which should enthral and
fascinate, so that love and desire to realise might stir
man to effort. If *^ morality touched by emotion " be
religion, then truly was I the most religious of
Atheists, finding in this dwelling on and glorifying of
the Ideal full satisfaction for the loftiest emotions. To
meet the fascination exercised over men's hearts by the
Man of Sorrows, I raised the image of man triumphant,
man perfected. " Rightly is the ideal Christian type of
humanity a Man of Sorrows. Jesus, with worn and
wasted body ; with sad, thin lips, curved into a mourn-
ful droop of penitence for human sin ; with weary
eyes gazing up to heaven because despairing of earth ;
bowed down and aged with grief and pain, broken-
hearted with long anguish, broken-spirited with un-
resisted ill-usage — such is the ideal man of the Christian
creed. Beautiful with a certain pathetic beauty, telling
of the long travail of earth, eloquent of the sufferings
of humanity, but not the model type to which men
should conform their lives, if they would make
humanity glorious. And, therefore, in radiant con-
trast with this, stands out in the sunshine and under
the blue summer sky, far from graveyards and torture
of death agony, the fair ideal Humanity of the Atheist.
In form strong and fair, perfect in physical develop-
ment as the Hercules of Grecian art, radiant with love,
glorious in self-reliant power ; with lips bent firm to
resist oppression, and melting into soft curves of passion

158 ANNIE BESANT

and of pity ; with deep, far-seeing eyes, gazing
piercingly into the secrets of the unknown, and resting
lovingly on the beauties around him ; with hands
strong to work in the present ; with heart full of hope
which the future shall realise ; making earth glad with
his labour and beautiful with his skill — this, this is
the Ideal Man, enshrined in the Atheist's heart. The
ideal humanity of the Christian is the humanity of the
slave, poor, meek, broken-spirited, humble, submissive
to authority, however oppressive and unjust ; the ideal
humanity of the Atheist is the humanity of the free
man who knows no lord, who brooks no tyranny, who
relies on his own strength, who makes his brother's
quarrel his, proud, true-hearted, loyal, brave." '

A one-sided view ? Yes. But a very natural out-
come of a sunny nature, for years held down by
unhappiness and the harshness of an outgrown creed.
It was the rebound of such a nature suddenly set free,
rejoicing in its liberty and self-conscious strength, and
it carried with it a great power of rousing the sympa-
thetic enthusiasm of men and women, deeply conscious
of their own restrictions and their own longings. It
was the cry of the freed soul that had found articulate
expression, and the many inarticulate and prisoned
souls answered to it tumultously, with fluttering of
caged wings. With hot insistence I battled for the
inspiration to be drawn from the beauty and grandeur
of which human life was capable. " Will any one
exclaim, * You are taking all beauty out of human life,
all hope, all warmth, all inspiration ; you give us cold
' "Gospel of Atheism." 1876.

ATHEISM AS I KNEW AND TAUGHT IT 159

duty for filial obedience, and inexorable law in the place
of God ' ? All beauty from life ? Is there, then, no
beauty in the idea of forming part of the great life of
the universe, no beauty in conscious harmony with
Nature, no beauty in faithful service, no beauty in
ideals of every virtue ? * All hope ' ? Why, I give
you more than hope, I give you certainty ; if I bid
you labour for this world, it is with the knowledge
that this world will repay you a thousand-fold, because
society will grow purer, freedom more settled, law
more honoured, life more fiill and glad. What is your
heaven ? A heaven in the clouds ! I point to a
heaven attainable on earth. * All warmth ' ? What !
you serve warmly a God unknown and invisible, in a
sense the projected shadow of your own imaginings,
and can only serve coldly your brother whom you see
at your side ? There is no warmth in brightening the
lot of the sad, in reforming abuses, in establishing equal
iustice for rich and poor.? You find warmth in the
church, but none in the home ? Warmth in imagining
the cloud glories of heaven, but none in creating sub-
stantial glories on earth ? ' All inspiration ' ? If you
want inspiration to feeling, to sentiment, perhaps you
had better keep to your Bible and your creeds; if you
want inspiration to work, go and walk through the
East of London, or the back streets of Manchester.
You are inspired to tenderness as you gaze at the
wounds of Jesus, dead in Judaea long ago, and find
no inspiration in the wounds of men and women, dying
in the England of to-day ? You ' have tears to shed for
Him,' but none for the sufferer at your doors? His

i6o ANNIE BESANT.

passion arouses your sympathies, but you see no pathos
in the passion of the poor ? Duty is colder than ' filial
obedience ' ? What do you mean by filial obedience ?
Obedience to your ideal of goodness and love — is it not
so ? Then how is duty cold ? I offer you ideals for
your homage : here is Truth for your Mistress, to
whose exaltation you shall devote your intellect ; here
is Freedom for your General, for whose triumph you
shall fight ; here is Love for your Inspirer, who shall
influence your every thought ; here is Man for your
Master — not in heaven, but on earth — to whose
service you shall consecrate every faculty of your
being. ' Inexorable law in the place of God ' ? Yes ;
a stern certainty that you shall not waste your life, yet
gather a rich reward at the close; that you shall not
sow misery, yet reap gladness ; that you shall not be
selfish, yet be crowned with love ; nor shall you sin,
yet find safety in repentance. True, our creed is a
stern one, stern with the beautiful sternness of Nature.
But if we be in the right, look to yourselves ; laws do
not check their action for your ignorance ; fire will not
cease to scorch, because you * did not know.' " ^

With equal vigour did I maintain that " virtue was
its own reward," and that payment on the other side of
the grave was unnecessary as an incentive to right living.
" What shall we say to Miss Cobbe's contention that
duty will ' grow grey and cold ' without God and
immortality .'' Yes, for those with whom duty is a
matter of selfish calculation, and who are virtuous only
because they look for a ' golden crown ' in payment on
* " On the Nature and Existence of God." 1874.

ATHEISM AS I KNEW AND TAUGHT IT. i6i

the other side the grave. Those of us who find joy
in right-doing, who work because work is useful to our
fellows, who live well because in such living we pay
our contribution to the world's wealth, leaving earth
richer than we found it — we need no paltry payment
after death for our life's labour, for in that labour is its
own * exceeding great reward.' " ^ But did any one yearn
for immortality, that " not all of me shall die " ^ " Is
it true that Atheism has no immortality ^ What is true
immortality.'* Is Beethoven's true immortality in his
continued personal consciousness, or in his glorious
music deathless while the world endures ? Is Shelley's
true life in his existence in some far-ofF heaven, or in
the pulsing liberty his lyrics send through men's hearts,
when they respond to the strains of his lyre? Music
does not die, though one instrument be broken ; thought
does not die, though one brain be shivered ; love does
not die, though one heart's strings be rent ; and no
great thinker dies so long as his thought re-echoes
through the ages, its melody the fuller-toned the more
human brains send its music on. Not only to the hero
and the sage is this immortality given ; it belongs to
each according to the measure of his deeds ; world-
wide life for world-wide service ; straitened life for
straitened work ; each reaps as he sows, and the harvest
is gathered by each in his rightful order." 2

This longing to leave behind a name that will live
among men by right of service done them, this yearning
for human love and approval that springs naturally

^ " A World without God." 1885.

«** The Gospel of Atheism." 1876.

II

i62 ANNIE BESANT.

from the practical and intense realisation of human
brotherhood — these will be found as strong motives in
the breasts of the most earnest men and women who
have in our generation identified themselves with the
Freethought cause. They shine through the written
and spoken words of Charles Bradlaugh all through his
life, and every friend of his knows how often he has
expressed the longing that " when the grass grows
green over my grave, men may love me a little for the
work I tried to do."

Needless to say that, in the many controversies in
which I took part, it was often urged against me that
such motives were insufficient, that they appealed only
to natures already ethically developed, and left the
average man, and, above all, the man below the
average, with no sufficiently constraining motive for
right conduct. I resolutely held to my faith in human
nature, and the inherent response of the human heart
when appealed to from the highest grounds ; strange —
I often think now — this instinctive certainty I had of
man's innate grandeur, that governed all my thought,
inconsistent as that certainty was with my belief in his
purely animal ancestry. Pressed too hard, I would
take refuge in a passionate disdain for all who did not
hear the thrilling voice of Virtue and love her for her own
sweet sake. *' I have myself heard the question asked :
* Why should I seek for truth, and why should I lead a
good life, if there be no immortality in which to reap
a reward ? ' To this question the Freethinker has one
clear and short answer : * There is no reason why you
should seek Truth, if to you the search has no attract-

ATHEISM AS I KNEW AND TAUGHT IT. 163

ing power. There is no reason why you should lead a
noble life, if you find your happiness in leading a poor
and a base one/ Friends, no one can enjoy a happiness
which is too high for his capabilities ; a book may be
of intensest interest, but a dog will very much prefer
being given a bone. To him whose highest interest is
centred in his own miserable self, to him who cares
only to gain his own ends, to him who seeks only his
own individual comfort, to that man Freethought can
have no attraction. Such a man may indeed be made
religious by a bribe of heaven ; he may be led to seek
for truth, because he hopes to gain his reward here-
after by the search ; but Truth disdains the service of
the self-seeker ; she cannot be grasped by a hand that
itches for reward. If Truth is not loved for her own
pure sake, if to lead a noble life, if to make men
happier, if to spread brightness around us, if to leave
the world better than we found it — if these aims have
no attraction for us, if these thoughts do not inspire us,
then we are not worthy to be Secularists, we have no
right to the proud title of Freethinkers. If you want
to be paid for your good lives by living for ever in a
lazy and useless fashion in an idle heaven ; if you want
to be bribed into nobility of life ; if, like silly children,
you learn your lesson not to gain knowledge but to win
sugar-plums, then you had better go back to your creeds
and your churches ; they are all you are fit for ; you
are not worthy to be free. But we — who, having caught
a glimpse of the beauty of Truth, deem the possession of
her worth more than all the world beside ; who have
made up our minds to do our work ungrudgingly,

i64 ANNIE BESANT.

asking for no reward beyond the results which spring
up from our labour — we will spread the Gospel of
Freethought among men, until the sad minor melodies
of Christianity have sobbed out their last mournful
notes on the dying evening breeze, and on the fresh
morning winds shall ring out the chorus of hope and
joyfulness, from the glad lips of men whom the Truth
has at last set free." ^

The intellectual comprehension of the sources of
evil and the method of its extinction was the
second great plank in my ethical platform. The
study of Darwin and Herbert Spencer, of Huxley,
Biichner and Haeckel, had not only convinced me of
the truth of evolution, but, with help from W. H.
Clifford, Lubbock, Buckle, Lecky, and many another,
had led me to see in the evolution of the social instinct
the explanation of the growth of conscience and of the
strengthening of man's mental and moral nature. If man
by study of the conditions surrounding him and by the
application of intelligence to the subdual of external
nature, had already accomplished so much, why should
not further persistence along the same road lead to his
complete emancipation ? All the evil, anti-social side
of his nature was an inheritance from his brute ancestry,
and could be gradually eradicated ; he could not only
"let the ape and tiger die," but he could kill them
out. *' It may be frankly acknowledged that man
inherits from his brute progenitors various bestial
tendencies which are in course of elimination. The
wild-beast desire to fight is one of these, and this has

* "The Gospels of Christianity and Freethought." 1874.

ATHEISM AS I KNEW AND TAUGHT IT. 165

been encouraged, not checked, by religion. . . .
Another bestial tendency is the lust of the male for
the female apart from love, duty, and loyalty; this
again has been encouraged by religion, as witness the
polygamy and concubinage of the Hebrews — as in
Abraham, David, and Solomon, not to mention the
precepts of the Mosaic laws — the bands of male and
female prostitutes in connection with Pagan temples,
and the curious outbursts of sexual passion in connec-
tion with religious revivals and missions. Another
bestial tendency is greed, the strongest grabbing all he
can and trampling down the weak, in the mad struggle
for wealth ; how and when has religion modified this
tendency, sanctified as it is in our present civilisation ?
All these bestial tendencies will be eradicated only by
the recognition of human duty, of the social bond.
Religion has not eradicated them, but science, by
tracing them to their source in our brute ancestry, has
explained them and has shown them in their true light.
As each recognises that the anti-social tendencies are
the bestial tendencies in man, and that man in evolving
further must evolve out of these, each also feels it part
of his personal duty to curb these in himself, and so to
rise further from the brute. This rational * co-opera-
tion with Nature ' distinguishes the scientific from the
religious person, and this constraining sense of obliga-
tion is becoming stronger and stronger in all those
who, in losing faith in God, have gained hope for
man. ^

For this rational setting of oneself on the side of the
^ "A World without God." 1885.

i66 ANNIE BESANT.

forces working for evolution implied active co-operation
by personal purity and nobility. '^ To the Atheist it
seems that the knowledge that the perfecting of the
race is only possible by the improvement of the
individual, supplies the most constraining motive
which can be imagined for efforts after personal per-
fection. The Theist may desire personal perfection,
but his desire is self-centred ; each righteous individual
is righteous, as it were, alone, and his righteousness
does not benefit his fellows save as it may make him
helpflil and loving in his dealings with them. The
Atheist desires personal perfection not only for his joy
in it as beautiful in itself, but because science has
taught him the unity of the race, and he knows that
each fresh conquest of his over the baser parts of his
nature, and each strengthening of the higher, is a gain
for all, and not for himself alone." '

Besides all this, the struggle against evil, regarded as
transitory and as a necessary concomitant of evolution,
loses its bitterness. " In dealing with evil, Atheism is
full of hope instead of despair. To the Christian, evil
is as everlasting as good ; it exists by the permission of
God, and, therefore, by the will of God. Our nature
is corrupt, inclined to evil ; the devil is ever near us,
working all sin and all misery. What hope has the
Christian face to face with a world's wickedness ^ what
answer to the question. Whence comes sin.? To the
Atheist the terrible problem has in it no figure of despair.
Evil comes from ignorance, we say ; ignorance of
physical and of moral facts. Primarily, from ignorance
A World without God ." 1885.

ATHEISM AS I KNEW AND TAUGHT IT. 167

of physical order ; parents who dwell in filthy, un-
ventilated, unweathertight houses, who live on insuffi-
cent, innutritious, unwholesome food, will necessarily
be unhealthy, will lack vitality, will probably have
disease lurking in their veins ; such parents will
bring into the world ill-nurtured children, in whom the
brain will generally be the least developed part of the
body ; such children, by their very formation, will incline
to the animal rather than to the human, and by leading
an animal, or natural, life will be deficient in those
qualities which are necessary in social life. Their
surroundings as they grow up, the home, the food,
the associates, all are bad. They are trained into
vice, educated into criminality ; so surely as from the
sown corn rises the wheat-ear, so from the sowing of
misery, filth, and starvation shall arise crime. And
the root of all is poverty and ignorance. Educate the
children, and give them fair wage for fair work in their
maturity, and crime will gradually diminish and ulti-
mately disappear. Man is God-made, says Theism ;
man is circumstance-made, says Atheism. Man is
the resultant of what his parents were, of what his
surroundings have been and are, and of what they
have made him ; himself the result of the past he
modifies the actual, and so the action and reaction go
on, he himself the effect of what is past, and one of the
causes of what is to come. Make the circumstances
good and the results will be good, for healthy bodies
and healthy brains may be built up, and from a State
composed of such the disease of crime will have dis-
appeared. Thus is our work full of hope ; no terrible

i68 ANNIE BESANT.

will of God have we to struggle against ; no despairful
future to look forward to, of a world growing more
and more evil, until it is, at last, to be burned up ; but
a glad, fair fliture of an ever-rising race, where more
equal laws, more general education, more just division,
shall eradicate pauperism, destroy ignorance, nourish
independence, a future to be made the grander by our
struggles, a future to be made the nearer by our toil." '
This joyous, self-reliant facing of the world with the
resolute determination to improve it is characteristic of
the noblest Atheism of our day. And it is thus a dis-
tinctly elevating factor in the midst of the selfishness,
luxury, and greed of modern civilisation. It is a
splendid school for training in unselfishness and in
virile virtue in the midst of the calculating and slothful
spirit which too often veils itself under the pretence or
religion. It will have no putting off of justice to a
far-off day of reckoning, and it is ever spurred on by
the feeling, " The night cometh, when no man can
work." Bereft of all hope of a personal future, it
binds up its hopes with that of the race ; unbelieving
in any aid from Deity, it struggles the more strenuously
to work out man's salvation by his own strength. " To
us there is but small comfort in Miss Cobbe's assurance
that 'earth's wrongs and agonies' *will be righted
hereafter.' Granting for a moment that man survives
death, what certainty have we that * the next world '
will be any improvement on this ? Miss Cobbe assures
us that this is ' God's world ' ; whose world will the next
be, if not also His.'* Will He be stronger there or
» "The Gospel of Atheism." 1876.

ATHEISM AS I KNEW AND TAUGHT IT. 169

better, that He should set right in that world the
wrongs He has permitted here? Will He have
changed His mind, or have become weary of the
contemplation of suffering ? To me the thought that
the world was in the hands of a God who permitted
all the present wrongs and pains to exist would be
intolerable, maddening in its hopelessness. There is
every hope of righting earth's wrongs and of curing
earth's pains if the reason and skill of man which have
already done so much are free to do the rest ; but if
they are to strive against omnipotence, hopeless indeed
is the future of the world. It is in this sense that the
Atheist looks on good as ' the final goal of ill,' and
believing that that goal will be reached the sooner the
more strenuous the efforts of each individual, he works
in the glad certainty that he is aiding the world's
progress thitherward. Not dreaming of a personal
reward hereafter, not craving a personal payment from
a heavenly treasury, he works and loves, content that
he is building a future fairer than his present, joyous
that he is creating a new earth for a happier race." i

Such was the creed and such the morality which
governed my life and thoughts from 1874 to 1886,
and with some misgivings to 1889, and from which
I drew strength and happiness amid all outer struggles
and distress. And I shall ever remain grateflil for the
intellectual and moral training it gave me, for the
self-reliance it nurtured, for the altruism it inculcated,
for the deep feeling of the unity of man that it fostered,
for the inspiration to work that it lent. And perhaps
» "A World without God." 1885.

I70 ANNIE BESANT.

the chief debt of gratitude I owe to Freethought is
that it left the mind ever open to new truth, encouraged
the most unshrinking questioning of Nature, and shrank
from no new conclusions, however adverse to the old,
that were based on solid evidence. I admit sorrowfully
that all Freethinkers do not learn this lesson, but I
worked side by side with Charles Bradlaugh, and the
Freethought we strove to spread was strong-headed
and broad-hearted.

The antagonism which, as we shall see in a few
moments, blazed out against me from the commence-
ment of my platform work, was based partly on
ignorance, was partly aroused by my direct attacks on
Christianity, and by the combative spirit I myself
showed in those attacks, and very largely by my
extreme Radicalism in politics. I had against me all
the conventional beliefs and traditions of society in
general, and I attacked them, not with bated breath
and abundant apologies, but joyously and defiantly,
with sheer delight in the intellectual strife. I was fired,
too, with passionate sympathy for the sufi^erings of the
poor, for the overburdened, overdriven masses of the
people, not only here but in every land, and wherever
a blow was struck at Liberty or Justice my pen or
tongue brake silence. It was a perpetual carrying of
the fiery cross, and the comfortable did not thank me
for shaking them out of their soft repose.

The antagonism that grew out of ignorance regarded
Atheism as implying degraded morality and bestial life,
and they assailed my conduct not on evidence that it
was evil, but on the presumption that an Atheist must

ATHEISM AS I KNEW AND TAUGHT IT. 171

be immoral. Thus a Christian opponent at Leicester
assailed me as a teacher of free love, fathering on me
views which were maintained in a book that I had not
read, but which, before I had ever seen the National
Reformer^ had been reviewed in its columns — as it was
reviewed in other London papers — and had been com-
mended for its clear statement of the Malthusian posi-
tion, but not for its contention as to free love, a theory
to which Mr. Bradlaugh was very strongly opposed.
Nor were the attacks confined to the ascription to me
of theories which I did not hold, but agents of the
Christian Evidence Society, in their street preaching,
made the foulest accusations against me of personal
immorality. Remonstrances addressed to the Rev. Mr.
Engstrom, the secretary of the society, brought voluble
protestations of disavowal and disapproval ; but as the
peccant agents were continued in their employment,
the apologies were of small value. No accusation was
too coarse, no slander too baseless, for circulation by
these men ; and for a long time these indignities caused
me bitter suffering, outraging my pride^, and soiling my
good name. The time was to come when I should
throw that good name to the winds for the sake of the
miserable, but in those early days I had done nothing to
merit, even ostensibly, such attacks. Even by educated
writers, who should have known better, the most
wanton accusations of violence and would-be destruc-
tiveness were brought against Atheists ; thus Miss
Frances Power Cobbe wrote in the Contemporary Review
that loss of faith in God would bring about the secu-
larisation or destruction of all cathedrals, churches, and

1/2 ANNIE BESANT.

chapels. " Why," I wrote in answer, " should cathe-
drals, churches, and chapels be destroyed? Atheism
will utilise, not destroy, the beautiful edifices which,
once wasted on God, shall hereafter be consecrated for
man. Destroy Westminster Abbey, with its exquisite
arches, its glorious tones of soft, rich colour, its stone-
work light as if of cloud, its dreamy, subdued twilight,
soothing as the * shadow of a great rock in a weary
land'? Nay, but reconsecrate it to humanity. The
fat cherubs who tumble over guns and banners on
soldiers' graves will fitly be removed to some spot
where their clumsy forms will no longer mar the
upward-springing grace of lines of pillar and of arch ;
but the glorious building wherein now barbaric psalms
are chanted and droning canons preach of Eastern
follies, shall hereafter echo the majestic music of
Wagner and Beethoven, and the teachers of the future
shall there unveil to thronging multitudes the beauties
and the wonders of the world. The ' towers and spires '
will not be effaced, but they will no longer be symbols
of a religion which sacrifices earth to heaven and Man
to God." I Between the cultured and the uncultured
burlesques of Atheism we came off pretty badly, being
for the most part regarded, as the late Cardinal Manning
termed us, as mere " cattle."

The moral purity and elevation of Atheistic teaching
were overlooked by many who heard only of my bitter
attacks on Christian theology. Against the teachings
of eternal torture, of the vicarious atonement, of the
infallibility of the Bible, I levelled all the strength of
> " A World without God." 1885.

ATHEISM AS I KNEW AND TAUGHT IT. 173

my brain and tongue, and I exposed the history of the
Christian Church with unsparing hand, its persecutions,
its religious wars, its cruelties, its oppressions. Smart-
ing under the suffering inflicted on myself, and wroth
with the cruel pressure continually put on Freethinkers
by Christian employers, speaking under constant threats
of prosecution, identifying Christianity with the poli-
tical and social tyrannies of Christendom, I used every
weapon that history, science, criticism, scholarship could
give me against the Churches ; eloquence, sarcasm,
mockery, all were called on to make breaches in the
wall of traditional belief and crass superstition.

To argument and reason I was ever ready to listen,
but I turned a front of stubborn defiance to all attempts
to compel assent to Christianity by appeals to force.
"The threat and the enforcement of legal and social
penalties against unbelief can never compel belief.
Belief must be gained by demonstration ; it can never
be forced by punishment. Persecution makes the
stronger among us bitter ; the weaker among us
hypocrites ; it never has made and never can make an
honest convert." ^

That men and women are now able to speak and
think as openly as they do, that a broader spirit is
visible in the Churches, that heresy is no longer
regarded as morally disgracefiil — these things are very
largely due to the active and militant propaganda
carried on under the leadership of Charles Bradlaugh,
whose nearest and most trusted friend I was. That my
tongue was in the early days bitterer than it should
*" The Christian Creed." 1884.

174 ANNIE BESANT.

have been, I frankly acknowledge ; that I ignored the
services done by Christianity and threw light only on
its crimes, thus committing injustice, I am ready to
admit. But these faults were conquered long ere I left
the Atheistic camp, and they were the faults of my
personality, not of the Atheistic philosophy. And my
main contentions were true, and needed to be made ;
from many a Christian pulpit to-day may be heard the
echo of the Freethought teachings ; men's minds have
been awakened, their knowledge enlarged ; and while
I condemn the unnecessary harshness of some of my
language, I rejoice that I played my part in that
educating of England which has made impossible for
evermore the crude superstitions of the past, and the
repetition of the cruelties and injustices under which
preceding heretics suffered.

But my extreme political views had also much to do
with the general feeling of hatred with which I was
regarded. Politics, as such, I cared not for at all, for
the necessary compromises of political life were intole-
rable to me ; but wherever they touched on the life of
the people they became to me of burning interest.
The land question, the incidence of taxation, the cost of
Royalty, the obstructive power of the House of Lords
— these were the matters to which I put my hand ; I
was a Home Ruler, too, of course, and a passionate
opponent of all injustice to nations weaker than
ourselves, so that I found myself always in opposition
to the Government of the day. Against our aggressive
and oppressive policy in Ireland, in the Transvaal, in
India, in Afghanistan, in Burmah, in Egypt, I lifted

ATHEISM AS I KNEW AND TAUGHT IT. 175

up my voice in all our great towns, trying to touch the
consciences of the people, and to make them feel the
immorality of a land-stealing, piratical policy. Against
war, against capital punishment, against flogging, de-
manding national education instead of big guns, public
libraries instead of warships — no wonder I was denounced
as an agitator, a firebrand, and that all orthodox society
turned up at me its most respectable nose.

CHAPTER VIII.

AT WORK.

FROM this sketch of the inner sources of action let
me turn to the actions themselves, and see how
the outer life was led which fed itself at these springs.

I have said that the friendship between Mr. Brad-
laugh and myself dated from our first meeting, and a
few days after our talk in Turner Street he came down
to see me at Norwood. It was characteristic of the
man that he refused my first invitation, and bade me to
think well ere I asked him to my house. He told me
that he was so hated by English society that any friend
of his would be certain to suffer, and that I should pay
heavily for any friendship extended to him. When,
however, I wrote to him, repeating my invitation, and
telling him that I had counted the cost, he came to see
me. His words came true ; my friendship for him
alienated from me even many professed Freethinkers,
but the strength and the happiness of it outweighed a
thousand times the loss it brought, and never has a
shadow of regret touched me that I clasped hands with
him in 1874, and won the noblest friend that woman

12 »77

178 ANNIE BESANT.

ever had. He never spoke to me a harsh word ; where
we differed, he never tried to override my judgment,
nor force on me his views ; we discussed all points of
difference as equal friends ; he guarded me from all
suffering as far as friend might, and shared with me
all the pain he could not turn aside ; all the brightness
of my stormy life came to me through him, from his
tender thoughtfulness, his ever-ready sympathy, his
generous love. He was the most unselfish man I ever
knew, and as patient as he was strong. My quick,
impulsive nature found in him the restful strength it
needed, and learned from him the self-control it lacked.
He was the merriest of companions in our rare
hours of relaxation ; for many years he was wont to come
to my house in the morning, after the hours always
set aside by him for receiving poor men who wanted
advice on legal and other matters — for he was a
veritable poor man's lawyer, always ready to help and
counsel — and, bringing his books and papers, he would
sit writing, hour after hour, I equally busy with my
own work, now and then, perhaps, exchanging a word,
breaking off just for lunch and dinner, and working on
again in the evening till about ten o'clock — he always
went early to bed when at home — he would take
himself off again to his lodgings, about three-quarters
of a mile away. Sometimes he would play cards for
an hour, euchre being our favourite game. But while
we were mostly busy and grave, we would make
holiday sometimes, and then he was like a boy,
brimming over with mirth, full of quaint turns of
thought and speech ; all the country round London

AT WORK. 179

has for me bright memories of our wanderings — Rich-
mond, where we tramped across the park, and sat under
its mighty trees ; Windsor, with its groves of bracken ;
Kew, where we had tea in a funny little room, with
watercress ad libitum ; Hampton Court, with its dis-
hevelled beauties ; Maidenhead and Taplow, where
the river was the attraction ; and, above all, Brox-
bourne, where he delighted to spend the day with his
fishing-rod, wandering along the river, of which he
knew every eddy. For he was a great fisherman, and
he taught me all the mysteries of the craft, mirthfully
disdainful of my dislike of the fish when I had caught
them. And in those days he would talk of all his
hopes of the future, of his work, of his duty to the
thousands who looked to him for guidance, of the time
when he would sit in Parliament as member for
Northampton, and help to pass into laws the projects
of reform for which he was battling with pen and
tongue. How often he would voice his love of
England, his admiration of her Parliament, his pride
in her history. Keenly alive to the blots upon it in
her sinful wars of conquest, in the cruel wrongs in-
flicted upon subject peoples, he was yet an Englishman
to the heart's core, but feeling above all the English-
man's duty, as one of a race that had gripped power
and held it, to understand the needs of those he ruled,
and to do justice willingly, since compulsion to justice
there was none. His service to India in the latest
years of his life was no suddenly accepted task. He
had spoken for her, pleaded for her, for many a long
year, through press and on platform, and his spurs as

i8o ANNIE BESANT.

member for India were won long ere he was member of
Parliament.

A place on the staff of the ISlational Reformer was
offered me by Mr. Bradlaugh a few days after our first
meeting, and the small weekly salary thus earned — it
was only a guinea, for national reformers are always
poor — was a very welcome addition to my resources.
My first contribution appeared in the number for
August 30, 1874, over the signature of " Ajax," and
I wrote in it regularly until Mr. Bradlaugh died ; from
1877 until his death I sub-edited it, so as to free
him from all the technical trouble and the weary
reading of copy, and for part of this period was also
CO- editor. I wrote at first under a nom de guerre^
because the work I was doing for Mr. Scott would
have been prejudiced had my name appeared in the
columns of the terrible National Reformer, and until
this work — commenced and paid for — was concluded
I did not feel at liberty to use my own name. After-
wards, I signed my National Reformer articles, and the
tracts written for Mr. Scott appeared anonymously.

The name was suggested by the famous statue of
" Ajax Crying for Light," a cast of which may be seen
in the centre walk by any visitor to the Crystal Palace,
Sydenham. The cry through the darkness for light,
even though light should bring destruction, was one
that awoke the keenest sympathy of response from my

heart :

" If our fate be death
Give light, and let us die ! "

To see, to know, to understand, even though the

AT WORK. i8i

seeing blind, though the knowledge sadden, though
the understanding shatter the dearest hopes — such has
ever been the craving of the upward-striving mind in
man. Some regard it as a weakness, as a folly, but I
am sure that it exists most strongly in some of the
noblest of our race ; that from the lips of those who
have done most in lifting the burden of ignorance
from the overstrained and bowed shoulders of a
stumbling world has gone out most often into the
empty darkness the pleading, impassioned cry :

"Give light!"

The light may come with a blinding flash, but it is
light none the less, and we can see.

And now the time had come when I was to use that
gift of speech which I had discovered in Sibsey Church
that I possessed, and to use it to move hearts and
brains all over the English land. In 1874, tentatively,
and in 1875 definitely, I took up this keen weapon,
and have used it ever since. My first attempt was at
a garden party, in a brief informal debate, and I found
that words came readily and smoothly : the second in
a discussion at the Liberal Social Union on the opening
of museums and art galleries on Sunday. My first
lecture was given at the Co-operative Institute, 55,
Castle Street, Oxford Street, on August 25, 1874.
Mr. Greening — then, I think, the secretary — had
invited me to read a paper before the society, and had
left me the choice of the subject. I resolved that my
first public lecture should be on behalf of my own sex,
so I selected for my theme, " The Political Status of

i82 ANNIE BESANT.

Women," and wrote thereon a paper. But it was a
very nervous person who presented herself at the
Co-operative Institute on that August evening. When
a visit to the dentist is made, and one stands on the
steps outside, desiring to run away ere the neat little
boy in buttons opens the door and beams on one with
a smile of compassionate superiority and implike
triumph, then the world seems dark and life is as a huge
blunder. But all such feelings are poor and weak as
compared with the sinking of the heart and the
trembling of the knees which seize upon the unhappy
lecturer as he advances towards his first audience, and
as before his eyes rises a ghastly vision of a tongue-tied
would-be lecturer, facing rows of listening faces, listen-
ing to — silence. But to my surprise all this miserable
feeling vanished the moment I was on my feet and was
looking at the faces before me. I felt no tremor of
nervousness from the first word to the last, and as I
heard my own voice ring out over the attentive listeners
I was conscious of power and of pleasure, not of fear.
And from that day to this my experience has been the
same ; before a lecture I am horribly nervous, wishing
myself at the ends of the earth, heart beating violently,
and sometimes overcome by deadly sickness. Once
on my feet, I feel perfectly at my ease, ruler of the
crowd, master of myself. I often jeer at myself
mentally as I feel myself throbbing and fearful, knowing
that when I stand up I shall be all right, and yet I
cannot conquer the physical terror and trembling,
illusory as I know them to be. People often say to
me, '* You look too ill to go on the platform." And

AT WORK. 183

I smile feebly and say I am all right, and I often fancy
that the more miserably nervous I am in the ante-room,
the better I speak when once on the platform. My
second lecture was delivered on September 27 th, at
Mr. Moncure D. Conway's Chapel, in St. Paul's Road,
Camden Town, and redelivered a few weeks later at
a Unitarian Chapel, where the Rev. Peter Dean was
minister. This was on the " True Basis of Morality,"
and was later printed as a pamphlet, which attained a wide
circulation. This was all I did in the way of speaking
in 1874, but I took silent part in an electioneering
struggle at Northampton, where a seat for the House
of Commons had fallen vacant by the death of Mr.
Charles Gilpin. Mr. Bradlaugh had contested the
borough as a Radical in 1868, obtaining 1,086 votes,
and again in February, 1874, when he received 1,653 ;
of these no less than i ,060 were plumpers, while his
four opponents had only 113, 64, 21 and 12 plumpers
respectively ; this band formed the compact and
personally loyal following which was to win the seat
for its chief in 1880, after twelve years of steady
struggle, and to return him over and over again to
Parliament during the long contest which followed his
election, and which ended in his final triumph. They
never wavered in their allegiance to " our Charlie,"
but stood by him through evil report and good report,
when he was outcast as when he was triumphant,
loving him with a deep, passionate devotion, as honour-
able to them as it was precious to him. I have seen
him cry like a child at evidences of their love for him,
he whose courage no danger could daunt, and who

i84 ANNIE BESANT.

was never seen to blench before hatred nOr change his
stern immobility in the face of his foes. Iron to
enmity, he was soft as a woman to kindness ; unbend-
ing as steel to pressure, he was ductile as wax to love.
John Stuart Mill had the insight in 1868 to see his
value, and the courage to recognise it. He strongly
supported his candidature, and sent a donation to his
election expenses. In his " Autobiography " he wrote
(pp. 311, 312):—

" He had the support of the working classes ; having
heard him speak I knew him to be a man of ability,
and he had proved that he was the reverse of a
demagogue by placing himself in strong opposition
to the prevailing opinion of the Democratic party on
two such important subjects as Malthusianism and
Proportional Representation. Men of this sort, who,
while sharing the democratic feeling of the working
classes, judge political questions for themselves, and
have the courage to assert their individual convictions
against popular opposition, were needed, as it seemed
to me, in Parliament ; and I did not think that Mr.
Bradlaugh's anti-religious opinions (even though he had
been intemperate in the expression of them) ought to
exclude him."

It has been said that Mr. Mill's support of Mr.
Bradlaugh's candidature at Northampton cost him his
own seat at Westminster, and so bitter was bigotry at
that time that the statement is very likely to be true.
On this, Mr. Mill himself said : *' It was the right
thing to do, and if the election were yet to take place,
1 would do it again."

AT WORK 185

At this election of September, 1874 — the second in
the year, for the general election had taken place in the
February, and Mr. Bradlaugh had been put up and
defeated during his absence in America — I went down
to Northampton to report electioneering incidents
for the National Reformer, and spent some days
there in the whirl of the struggle. The Whig
party was more bitter against Mr. Bradlaugh than was
the Tory. Strenuous efforts were made to procure a
Liberal candidate, who would be able at least to prevent
Mr. Bradlaugh's return, and, by dividing the Liberal
and Radical party, should let in a Tory rather than the
detested Radical. Messrs. Bell and James and Dr.
Pearce came on the scene only to disappear. Mr.
Jacob Bright and Mr. Arnold Morley were vainly
suggested. Mr. Ayrton's name was whispered.
Major Lumley was recommended by Mr. Bernal
Osborne. Dr. Kenealy proclaimed himself ready
to come to the rescue of the Whigs. Mr. Tillett,
of Norwich, Mr. Cox, of Belper, were invited, but
neither would consent to oppose a good Radical who
had fought two elections at Northampton and had been
the chosen of the Radical workers for six years. At
last Mr. William Fowler, a banker, accepted the task
of handing over the representation of a Liberal and
Radical borough to a Tory, and duly succeeded in
giving the seat to Mr. Mereweather, a very reputable
Tory lawyer. Mr. Bradlaugh polled 1,766, thus
adding another 133 voters to those who had polled for
him in the previous February.

That election gave me my first experience of any-

i86 ANNIE BESANT.

thing in the nature of rioting. The violent abuse
levelled against Mr. Bradlaugh by the Whigs, and the
foul and wicked slanders circulated against him, assailing
his private life and family relations, had angered almost
to madness those who knew and loved him ; and when
it was found that the unscrupulous Whig devices had
triumphed, had turned the election against him, and
given over the borough to a Tory, the fury broke out
into open violence. One illustration may be given
as a type of these cruel slanders. It was known that
Mr. Bradlaugh was separated from his wife, and it was
alleged that being an Atheist, and, (therefore !) an
opponent of marriage, he had deserted his wife and
children, and left them to the workhouse. The cause
of the separation was known to very few, for Mr.
Bradlaugh was chivalrously honourable to women, and
he would not shield his own good name at the cost
of that of the wife of his youth and the mother of his
children. But since his death his only remaining child
has, in devotion to her father's memory, stated the
melancholy truth : that Mrs. Bradlaugh gave way to
drink ; that for long years he bore with her and
did all that man could do to save her; that finally,
hopeless of cure, he broke up his home, and placed
his wife in the care of her parents in the country,
leaving her daughters with her, while he worked for
their support. No man could have acted more
generously and wisely under these cruel circumstances
than he did, but it was, perhaps, going to an extreme
of Quixotism, that he concealed the real state of
the case, and let the public blame him as it would.

AT WORK. 187

His Northampton followers did not know the facts,
but they knew him as an upright, noble man, and these
brutal attacks on his personal character drove them
wild. Stray fights had taken place during the election
over these slanders, and, defeated by such foul weapons,
the people lost control of their passions. As Mr.
Bradlaugh was sitting well-nigh exhausted in the hotel,
after the declaration of the poll, the landlord rushed in,
crying to him to go out and try to stop the people, or
there would be murder done at the " Palmerston," Mr.
Fowler's headquarters ; the crowd was charging the
door, and the windows were being broken with showers
of stones. Weary as he was, Mr. Bradlaugh sprang
to his feet, and swiftly made his way to the rescue
of those who had maligned and defeated him.
Flinging himself before the doorway, from which the
door had just been battered down, he knocked down
one or two of the most violent, drove the crowd back,
argued and scolded them into quietness, and finally
dispersed them. But at nine o'clock he had to leave
Northampton to catch the mail steamer for America at
Queenstown, and after he had left, word went round
that he had gone, and the riot he had quelled broke out
afresh. The Riot Act was at last read, the soldiers
were called out, stones flew freely, heads and windows
were broken, but no very serious harm was done. The
** Palmerston " and the printing-office of the Mercury ^
the Whig organ, were the principal sufi^erers ; doors
and windows disappearing somewhat completely. The
day after the election I returned home, and soon after
fell ill with a severe attack of congestion of the lungs.

i88 ANNIE BESANT.

Soon after my recovery I left Norwood arid settled in
a house in Westbourne Terrace, Bayswater, where I
remained till 1876.

In the following January (1875), ^^^^ much thought
and self- analysis, I resolved to give myself wholly to
propagandist work, as a Freethinker and a Social
Reformer, and to use my tongue as well as my pen
in the struggle. I counted the cost ere I determined
on this step, for I knew that it would not only outrage
the feelings of such new friends as I had already made, but
would be likely to imperil my custody of my little girl.
I knew that an Atheist was outside the law, obnoxious to
its penalties, but deprived of its protection, and that
the step I contemplated might carry me into conflicts in
which everything might be lost and nothing could be
gained. But the desire to spread liberty and truer
thought among men, to war against bigotry and
superstition, to make the world freer and better than I
found it — all this impelled me with a force that would
not be denied. I seemed to hear the voice of Truth
ringing over the battlefield : " Who will go ? Who
will speak for me^ " And I sprang forward with
passionate enthusiasm, with resolute cry : " Here am
I, send me ! ' Nor have I ever regretted for one
hour that resolution, come to in solitude, carried out
amid the surging life of men, to devote to that sacred
cause every power of brain and tongue that I possessed.
Very solemn to me is the responsibility of the public
teacher, standing forth in Press and on platform to
partly mould the thought of his time, swaying
thousands of readers and hearers year after year. No

AT WORK. 189

weighter responsibility can any take, no more sacred
charge. The written and the spoken word start forces
none may measure, set working brain after brain, in-
fluence numbers unknown to the forthgiver of the
word, work for good or for evil all down the stream of
time. Feeling the greatness of the career, the solemnity
of the duty, I pledged my word then to the cause I
loved that no effort on my part should be wanted to
render myself worthy of the privilege of service that I
took ; that I would read and study, and would train
every faculty that I had; that I would polish my
language, discipline my thought, widen my knowledge ;
and this, at least, I may say, that if I have written and
spoken much, I have studied and thought more, and
that I have not given to my mistress Truth that
" which hath cost me nothing."

This same year (1875) ^^^^ ^^^ ^^ launched on the
world as a public advocate of Freethought, saw also
the founding of the Theosophical Society to which my
Freethought was to lead me. I have often since
thought with pleasure that at the very time I began
lecturing in England, H. P, Blavatsky was at work
in the United States, preparing the foundation on
which in November, 1875, *^^ Theosophical Society
was to be raised. And with deeper pleasure yet have
I found her writing of what she called the noble work
against superstition done by Charles Bradlaugh and
myself, rendering the propaganda of Theosophy far
more practicable and safer than it would otherwise have
been. The fight soon began, and with some queer
little skirmishes. I was a member of the *' Liberal

190 ANNIE BESANT.

Social Union," and one night a discussion arose as to
the admissibility of Atheists to the Society. Dr. Zerffi
declared that he would not remain a member if avowed
Atheists were admitted. I promptly declared that I was
an Atheist, and that the basis of the union was liberty
of opinion. The result was that I found myself cold-
shouldered, and those that had been warmly cordial to
me merely as a non-Christian looked askance at me
when I had avowed that my scepticism had advanced
beyond their " limits of religious thought." The
Liberal Social Union soon knew me no more, but in the
wider field of work open before me, the narrow-
mindedness of this petty clique troubled me not at all.
I started my definite lecturing work at South Place
Chapel in January, 1875, Mr. Moncure D. Conway
presiding for me, and I find in the National Reformer
for January 17th, the announcement that " Mrs. Annie
Besant (' Ajax ') will lecture at South Place Chapel,
Finsbury, on * Civil and Religious Liberty.' " Thus
I threw off my pseudonym, and rode into the field of
battle with uplifted visor. The identification led to an
odd little exhibition of bigotry. I had been invited by
the Dialectical Society to read a paper, and had selected
for subject, " The Existence of God." (It may be
noted, in passing, that young students and speakers
always select the most tremendous subjects for their
discourses. One advances in modesty as one advances
in knowledge, and after eighteen years of platform
work, I am far more dubious than I was at their
beginning as to my power of dealing in any sense
adequately with the problems of life.) The Dialectical

AT WORK. 191

Society had for some years held their meetings in a
room in Adam Street, rented from the Social Science
Association. When the members gathered as usual
on February 17th, the door was found to be locked,
and they had to gather on the stairs ; they found
that " Ajax's " as yet undelivered paper was too much
for Social Science nerves, and that entrance to their
ordinary meeting-room was then and thenceforth denied
them. So they, with "Ajax," found refuge at the
Charing Cross Hotel, and speculated merrily on the
eccentricities of religious bigotry.

On February 12th I started on my first provincial
lecturing tour, and after speaking at Birkenhead that
evening went on by the night mail to Glasgow. Some
races — dog races — I think, had been going on, and
very unpleasant were many of the passengers waiting
on the platform. Some Birkenhead friends had secured
me a compartment, and watched over me till the train
began to move. Then, after we had fairly started, the
door was flung open by a porter, and a man was thrust
in who half tumbled on to the seat. As he slowly
recovered he stood up, and as his money rolled out
of his hand on to the floor, and he gazed vaguely at it,
I saw to my horror that he was drunk. The position
was not pleasant, for the train was an express, and was
not timed to stop for a considerable time. My odious
fellow-passenger spent some time on the floor, hunting
after his scattered coins ; then he slowly gathered him-
self up and presently became conscious of my presence.
He studied me for some time, and then proposed to
shut the window. I assented quietly, not wanting to

192 ANNIE BESANT.

discuss a trifle and feeling in deadly terror — alone at
night in an express with a man not drunk enough to be
helpless, but too drunk to be controlled. Never before
nor since have I felt so thoroughly frightened. I can
see him still, swaying as he stood, with eyes bleared and
pendulous lips — but I sat there quiet and outwardly
unmoved, as is always my impulse in danger till I see
some way of escape, only grasping a penknife in my
pocket, with a desperate resolve to use my feeble
weapon as soon as the need arose. The man came
towards me with a fatuous leer, when a jarring noise
was heard and the train began to slacken.

" What is that ? " stammered my drunken companion.

"They are putting on the brakes to stop the train,"
I answered very slowly and distinctly, though a very
passion of relief made it hard to say quietly the
measured words.

The man sat down stupidly, staring at me, and in
a minute or two the train pulled up at a station — it
had been stopped by signal. My immobility was
gone. In a moment I was at the window, called the
guard, and explained rapidly that I was a woman
travelling alone, and that a half-drunken man was in
the carriage. With the usual kindness of a railway
official, he at once moved me and my baggage into
another compartment, into which he locked me, and he
kept a friendly watch over me at every station at which
we stopped until he landed me safely at Glasgow.

At Glasgow a room had been taken for me at a
temperance hotel, and it seemed to me so new and
lonely a thing to be " all on my own account " in a

AT WORK. 193

strange hotel in a strange city, that I wanted to sit
down and cry. This feeling, to which I was too proud
to yield, was probably partly due to the extreme
greyness and grubbiness of my surroundings. Things
are better now, but in those days temperance hotels
were for the most part lacking in cleanliness. Absti-
nence from alcohol and a superfluity of " matter in the
wrong place" do not seem necessary correlatives, yet
I rarely went to a temperance hotel in which water was
liberally used for other purposes than that of drinking.
From Glasgow I went north to Aberdeen, where
I found a very stern and critical audience. Not a
sound broke the stillness as I walked up the hall ; not
a sound as I ascended the platform and faced the
people ; the canny Scot was not going to applaud a
stranger at sight ; he was going to see what she was
like first. In grim silence they listened ; I could not
move them ; they were granite like their own granite
city, and I felt I would like to take off my head and
throw it at them, if only to break that hard wall.
After about twenty minutes, a fortunate phrase drew
a hiss from some child of the Covenanters. I made
a quick retort, there was a burst of cheering, and the
granite vanished. Never after that did I have to
complain of the coldness of an Aberdeen audience.
Back to London from Aberdeen, and a long, weary
journey it was, in a third-class carriage in the cold
month of February ; but the labour had in it a joy
that outpaid all physical discomfort, and the feeling
that I had found my work in the world gave a new
happiness to life.

13

194 ANNIE BESANT.

On February 28th I stood for the first time on the
platform of the Hall of Science, Old Street, St. Luke's,
London, and was received with that warmth of greeting
which Secularists are always so ready to extend to any
who sacrifice aught to join their ranks. That hall is
identified in my mind with many a bitter struggle, with
both victory and defeat, but whether in victory or in
defeat I found there always welcome ; and the love and
the courage wherewith Secularists stood by me have
overpaid a thousandfold any poor services I was fortu-
nate enough to render, while in their ranks, to the cause
of Liberty, and wholly prevent any bitterness arising in
my mind for any unfriendliness shown me by some,
who have perhaps overstepped kindness and justice in
their sorrowfijl wrath at my renunciation of Materialism
and Atheism. So far as health was concerned, the
lecturing acted as a tonic. My chest had always been
a little delicate, and when I consulted a doctor on the
possibility of my standing platform work, he answered,
"It will either kill you or cure you." It entirely cured
the lung weakness, and I grew strong and vigorous
instead of being frail and delicate, as of old.

It would be wearisome to go step by step over
eighteen years of platform work, so I will only select
here and there incidents illustrative of the whole.
And here let me say that the frequent attacks made
on myself and others, that we were attracted to Free-
thought propaganda by the gains it offered, formed a
somewhat grotesque contrast to the facts. On one
occasion I spent eight days in Northumberland and
Durham, gave twelve lectures, and made a deficit of

AT WORK. 195

eleven shillings on the whole. Of course such a thing
could not happen in later years, when I had made my
name by sheer hard work, but I fancy that every
Secularist lecturer could tell of similar experiences in
the early days of "winning his way." The fact is
that from Mr. Bradlaugh downwards every one of us
could have earned a competence with comparative ease
in any other line of work, and could have earned it
with public approval instead of amid popular reproach.
Much of my early lecturing was done in Northumber-
land and Durham; the miners there are, as a rule,
shrewd and hard-headed men, and very cordial is the
greeting given by them to those they have reason to
trust. At Seghill and at Bedlington I have slept
in their cottages and have been welcomed to their
tables, and I have a vivid memory of one evening at
Seghill, after a lecture, when my host, himself a miner,
invited about a dozen of his comrades to supper to
meet me ; the talk ran on politics, and I soon found
that my companions knew more of English politics,
had a far shrewder notion of political methods, and
were, therefore, much better worth talking to, than
most of the ordinary men met at dinner parties " in
society." They were of the " uneducated " class
despised by " gentlemen," and had not then the fran-
chise, but politically they were far better educated than
their social superiors, and were far better fitted to dis-
charge the duties of citizenship. How well, too, do I
remember a ten-mile drive in a butcher's cart, to give a
lecture in an out-of-the-way spot, unapproached by
railway. Such was the jolting as we rattled over rough

196 ANNIE BESANT.

roads and stony places, that I felt as though all my
bones were broken, and as though I should collapse on
the platform like a bag half-filled with stones. How
kind they were to me, those genial, cordial miners, how
careful for my comfort, and how motherly were the
women ! Ah ! if opponents of my views who did not
know me were often cruel and malignant, there was
compensation in the love and honour in which good
men and women all the country over held me, and their
devotion outweighed the hatred, and many a time and
often soothed a weary and aching heart.

Lecturing in June, 1875, at Leicester, I came for the
first time across a falsehood that brought sore trouble
and cost me more pain than I care to tell. An irate
Christian opponent, in the discussion that followed the
lecture, declared that I was responsible for a book
entitled, " The Elements of Social Science," which was,
he averred, " The Bible of Secularists." I had never
heard of the book, but as he stated that it was in favour
of the abolition of marriage, and that Mr. Bradlaugh
agreed with it, I promptly contradicted him ; for while
I knew nothing about the book, I knew a great deal
about Mr. Bradlaugh, and I knew that on the marriage
question he was conservative rather than revolutionary.
He detested " Free Love " doctrines, and had thrown
himself strongly on the side of the agitation led so
heroically for many years by Mrs. Josephine Butler.
On my return to London afi:er the lecture I naturally
made inquiry as to the volume and its contents, and I
found that it had been written by a Doctor of Medicine
some years before, and sent to the National Reformer

AT WORK. 197

for review, as to other journals, in ordinary course of
business. It consisted of three parts — the first advo-
cated, fi:om the standpoint of medical science, what is
roughly known as " Free Love " ; the second was
entirely medical ; the third consisted of a clear and
able exposition of the law of population as laid down
by the Rev. Mr. Malthus, and — following the lines
of John Stuart Mill — insisted that it was the duty
of married persons to voluntarily limit their families
within their means of subsistence. Mr. Bradlaugh, in
reviewing the book, said that it was written " with
honest and pure intent and purpose," and recommended
to working men the exposition of the law of popula-
tion. His enemies took hold of this recommendation,
declared that he shared the author's views on the im-
permanence of the marriage tie, and, despite his reite-
rated contradictions, they used extracts against marriage
from the book as containing his views. Anything more
meanly vile it would be difficult to conceive, but such
were the weapons used against him all his life, and used
often by men whose own lives contrasted most un-
favourably with his own. Unable to find anything in
his own writings to serve their purpose, they used this
book to damage him with those who knew nothing
at first-hand of his views. What his enemies feared
were not his views on marriage — which, as I have said,
was conservative — but his Radicalism and his Atheism.
To discredit him as politician they maligned him
socially, and the idea that a man desires " to abolish
marriage and the home," is a most convenient poniard,
and the one most certain to wound. This was the

198 ANNIE BESANT.

origin of his worst difficulties, to be intensified, ere
long, by his defence of Malthusianism. On me also
fell the same lash, and I found myself held up to hatred
as upholder of views that I abhorred.

I may add that far warmer praise than that bestowed
on this book by Mr. Bradlaugh was given by other
writers, who were never attacked in the same way.

In the Reasonerj edited by Mr. George Jacob Holy-
oake, I find warmer praise of it than in the National
Reformer ; in the review the following passage ap-
pears : —

" In some respects all books of this class are evils :
but it would be weakness and criminal prudery — a
prudery as criminal as vice itself — not to say that such
a book as the one in question is not only a far lesser
evil than the one that it combats, but in one sense a
book which it is a mercy to issue and courage to
publish."

The Examinery reviewing the same book, declared it
to be —

" A very valuable, though rather heterogeneous book.
. . . This is, we believe, the only book that has fully,
honestly, and in a scientific spirit recognised all the
elements in the problem — How are mankind to triumph
over poverty, with its train of attendant evils.'' — and
fearlessly endeavoured to find a practical solution ."

The British Journal of Homceopathy wrote : —

" Though quite out of the province of our journal,
we cannot refrain fi-om stating that this work is un-
questionably the most remarkable one, in many respects,
we have ever met with. Though we differ toto ccelo

AT WORK. 199

from the author in his views of religion and morality,
and hold some of his remedies to tend rather to a
dissolution than a reconstruction of society, yet we are
bound to admit the benevolence and philanthropy of
his motives. The scope of the work is nothing less
than the whole field of political economy."

Ernest Jones and others wrote yet more strongly,
but out of all these Charles Bradlaugh alone has been
selected for reproach, and has had the peculiar views of
the anonymous author fathered on himself.

Some of the lecture work in those days was pretty
rough. In Darwen, Lancashire, in June, 1875, stone-
throwing was regarded as a fair argument addressed to
the Atheist lecturer. At Swansea, in March, 1876, the
fear of violence was so great that a guarantee against
damage to the hall was exacted by the proprietor, and
no local friend had the courage to take the chair for
me. In September, 1876, at Hoyland, thanks to the
exertions of Mr. Hebblethwaite, a Primitive Methodist,
and two Protestant missionaries, I found the hall packed
with a crowd that yelled at me with great vigour,
stood on forms, shook fists at me, and otherwise showed
feelings more warm than friendly. Taking advantage
of a lull in the noise, I began to speak, and the tumult
sank into quietness ; but as I was leaving the hall it
broke out afresh, and I walked slowly through a crowd
that yelled and swore and struck at me, but somehow
those nearest always shrank back and let me pass.
In the dark, outside the hall, they took to kicking,
but only one kick reached me, and the attempts to
overturn the cab were foiled by the driver, who put

200 ANNIE BESANT.

his horse at a gallop. Later in the same month Mr.
Bradlaugh and I visited Congleton together, having
been invited there by Mr. and Mrs. Wolstenholme
Elmy. Mr. Bradlaugh lectured on the first evening
to an accompaniment of broken windows, and I, sitting
with Mrs. Elmy facing the platform, received a rather
heavy blow on the back of the head from a stone
thro\<rn by some one in the room. We had a mile and
a half to walk from the hall to the house, and were
accompanied all the way by a stone-throwing crowd,
who sang hymns at the tops of their voices, with inter-
ludes of curses and foul words. On the following
evening I lectured, and our stone-throwing admirers
escorted us to the hall ; in the middle of the lecture a
man shouted, " Put her out ! '' and a well-known wrestler
of the neighbourhood, named Burbery, who had come
to the hall with some friends to break up the meeting,
stood up as at a signal in front of the platform and
loudly interrupted. Mr. Bradlaugh, who was in the
chair, told him to sit down, and, as he persisted in
interrupting, informed him that he must either be quiet
or go out. " Put me out ! " shouted Mr. Burbery,
striking an attitude. Mr. Bradlaugh left the platform
and walked up to the noisy swashbuckler, who at once
grappled with him and tried to throw him. But Mr.
Burbery had not reckoned on the massive strength of
his opponent, and when the " throw " was complete
Mr. Burbery was underneath. Amid much excitement
Mr. Burbery was propelled towards the door, being
gently used on the way as a battering-ram against his
friends who rushed to the rescue, and at the door

AT WORK. 201

was handed over to the police. The chairman then
resumed his normal duties, with a brief "Go on" to
me, and I promptly went on, finishing the lecture in
peace. But outside the hall there was plenty of stone-
throwing, and Mrs, Elmy received a cut on the temple
from a flint. This stormy work gradually lessened,
and my experience of it was a mere trifle compared to
that which my predecessors had faced. Mr. Brad-
laugh's early experiences involved much serious rioting,
and Mrs. Harriet Law, a woman of much courage and
of strong natural ability, had many a rough meeting
in her lecturing days.

In September, 1875, Mr. Bradlaugh again sailed for
America, still to earn money there to pay his debts.
Unhappily he was struck down by typhoid fever, and
all his hopes of freeing himself thus were destroyed.
His life was well-nigh despaired of, but the admirable
skill of physician and nurse pulled him through. Said
the Baltimore Advertiser : —

" This long and severe illness has disappointed the
hopes and retarded the object for which he came to
this country ; but he is gentleness and patience itself
in his sickness in this strange land, and has endeared
himself greatly to his physicians and attendants by his
gratitude and appreciation of the slightest attention."

His fortitude in face of death was also much com-
mented on, lying there as he did far from home and
from all he loved best. Never a quiver of fear touched
him as he walked down into the valley of the shadow
of death ; the Rev. Mr. Frothingham bore public and
admiring testimony in his own church to Mr. Brad-

202 ANNIE BESANT.

laugh's noble serenity, at once fearless and unpre-
tending, and, himself a Theist, gave willing witness
to the Atheist's calm strength. He came back to us
at the end of September, worn to a shadow, weak as a
child, and for many a long month he bore the traces of
his wrestle with death.

One part of my autumn's work during his absence
was the delivery and subsequent publication of six
lectures on the French Revolution. That stormy time
had for me an intense fascination. I brooded over it,
dreamed over it, and longed to tell the story from the
people's point of view. I consequently read a large
amount of the current literature of the time, as well
as Louis Blanc's monumental work and the histories
of Michelet, Lamartine, and others. Fortunately
for me, Mr. Bradlaugh had a splendid collection
of books on the subject, and ere we left England he
brought me two cabs-full of volumes, aristocratic,
ecclesiastical, democratic, and I studied all these dili-
gently, and lived in them, till the French Revolution
became to me as a drama in which I had myself taken
part, and the actors were to me as personal friends and
foes. In this, again, as in so much of my public work,
I have to thank Mr. Bradlaugh for the influence which
led me to read fully all sides of a question, and to read
most carefully those from which I differed most, ere I
considered myself competent to write or to speak
thereon.

From 1875 onwards I held office as one of the vice-
presidents of the National Secular Society — a society
founded on a broad basis of liberty, with the inspiring

AT WORK. 203

motto, " We Search for Truth." Mr. Bradlaugh was
president, and I held office under him till he resigned
his post in February, 1890, nine months after I had
joined the Theosophical Society. The N. S. S., under
his judicious and far-sighted leadership, became a real
force in the country, theologically and politically,
embracing large numbers of men and women who were
Freethinkers as well as Radicals, and forming a nucleus
of earnest workers, able to gather round them still
larger numbers of others, and thus to powerfully affect
public opinion. Once a year the society met in con-
ference, and many a strong and lasting friendship
between men living far apart dated from these yearly
gatherings, so that all over the country spread a net-
work of comradeship between the staunch followers of
" our Charlie." These were the men and women who
paid his election expenses over and over again, sup-
ported him in his Parliamentary struggle, came up to
London to swell the demonstrations in his favour.
And round them grew up a huge party — " the largest
personal following of any public man since Mr. Glad-
stone," it was once said by an eminent man — who
differed from him in theology, but passionately sup-
ported him in politics ; miners, cutlers, weavers,
spinners, shoemakers, operatives of every trade, strong,
sturdy, self-reliant men who loved him to the last.

CHAPTER IX.

THE KNOWLTON PAMPHLET.

THE year 1877 dawned, and in its early days began
a struggle which, ending in victory all along the
line, brought with it pain and anguish that I scarcely
care to recall. An American physician, Dr. Charles
Knowlton, convinced of the truth of the teaching of
the Rev. Mr. Malthus, and seeing that that teach^ing
had either no practical value or tended to the great
increase of prostitution, unless married people were
taught to limit their families within their means of liveli-
hood— wrote a pamphlet on the voluntary limitation of
the family. It was published somewhere in the Thirties
— about 1835, ^ think — and was sold unchallenged in
England as well as in America for some forty years.
Philosophers of the Bentham school, like John Stuart
Mill, endorsed its teachings, and the bearing of popu-
lation on poverty was an axiom in economic literature.
Dr. Knowlton's work was a physiological treatise,
advocating conjugal prudence and parental responsi-
bility ; it argued in favour of early marriage, with
a view to the purity of social life ; but as early
marriage between persons of small means generally

2o6 ANNIE BESANT.

implies a large family, leading either to pauperism or to
lack of necessary food, clothing, education, and fair
start in life for the children. Dr. Knowlton advocated
the restriction of the number of the family within the
means of subsistence, and stated the methods by which
this restriction could be carried out. The book was i
never challenged till a disreputable Bristol bookseller
put some copies on sale to which he added some
improper pictures, and he was prosecuted and con-
victed. The publisher of the National Reformer and
of Mr. Bradlaugh's and my books and pamphlets had
taken over a stock of Knowlton's pamphlets among
other literature he bought, and he was prosecuted and,
to our great dismay, pleaded guilty. We at once re-
moved our publishing from his hands, and after careful
deliberation we decided to publish the incriminated
pamphlet in order to test the right of discussion on the
population question, when, with the advice to limit the
family, information was given as to how that advice
could be followed. We took a little shop, printed the
pamphlet, and sent notice to the police that we would
commence the sale at a certain day and hour, and our-
selves sell the pamphlet, so that no one else might be
endangered by our action. We resigned our offices in
the National Secular Society that we might not injure
the society, but the executive first, and then the Annual
Conference, refused to accept the resignations. Our
position as regarded the pamphlet was simple and
definite ; had it been brought to us for publication, we
stated, we should not have published it, for it was not
a treatise of high merit ; but, prosecuted as immoral

THE KNOWLTON PAMPHLET. 207

because it advised the limitation of the family, it at
once embodied the right of publication. In a preface
to the republished edition, we wrote : —

"We republish this pamphlet, honestly believing that
on all questions affecting the happiness of the people,
whether they be theological, political, or social, fullest
right of free discussion ought to be maintained at
all hazards. We do not personally endorse all that
Dr. Knowlton says : his * Philosophical Proem ' seems
to us full of philosophical mistakes, and — as we are
neither of us doctors — we are not prepared to endorse
his medical views ; but since progress can only be made
through discussion, and no discussion is possible where
differing opinions are suppressed, we claim the right to
publish all opinions, so that the public, enabled to
see all sides of a question, may have the materials
for forming a sound judgment."

We were not blind to the danger to which this
defiance of the authorities exposed us, but it was
not the danger of failure, with the prison as penalty,
that gave us pause. It was the horrible misconceptions
that we saw might arise ; the odious imputations on
honour and purity that would follow. Could we,
the teachers of a lofty morality, venture to face a
prosecution for publishing what would be technically
described as an obscene book, and risk the ruin of
our future, dependent as that was on our fair fame?
To Mr. Bradlaugh it meant, as he felt, the almost
certain destruction of his Parliamentary position, the
forging by his own hands of a weapon that in the
hands of his foes would be well-nigh fatal. To me

208 ANNIE BESANT.

it meant the loss of the pure reputation I prized, the
good name I had guarded — scandal the most terrible a
woman could face. But I had seen the misery of the
poor, of my sister-women with children crying for
bread ; the wages of the workmen were often sufficient
for four, but eight or ten they could not maintain.
Should I set my own safety, my own good name,
against the helping of these ? Did it matter that
my reputation should be ruined, if its ruin helped
to bring remedy to this otherwise hopeless wretched-
ness of thousands ? What was worth all my talk about
self-sacrifice and self-surrender, if, brought to the test,
I failed ? So, with heart aching but steady, I came
to my resolution ; and though I know now that I
was wrong intellectually, and blundered in the remedy,
I was right morally in the will to sacrifice all to
help the poor, and I can rejoice that I faced a storm
of obloquy fiercer and harder to bear than any other
which can ever touch me again. I learned a lesson
of stern indifference to all judgments from without
that were not endorsed by condemnation from within.
The long sufi^ering that followed was a splendid school
for the teaching of endurance.

The day before the pamphlet was put on sale we
ourselves delivered copies to the Chief Clerk of the
Magistrates at Guildhall, to the officer in charge at
the City Police Office in Old Jewry, and to the
Solicitor for the City of London. With each pamphlet
was a notice that we would attend and sell the book
from 4 to 5 p.m. on the following day, Saturday,
March 24th. This we accordingly did, and in order

THE KNOWLTON PAMPHLET. 209

to save trouble we offered to attend daily at the
shop from 10 to 11 a.m. to facilitate our arrest,
should the authorities determine to prosecute. The
offer was readily accepted, and after some little delay
— during which a deputation from the Christian
Evidence Society waited upon Mr. Cross to urge
the Tory Government to prosecute us — warrants
were issued against us and we were arrested on
April 6th. Letters of approval and encouragement
came from the most diverse quarters, including
among their writers General Garibaldi, the well-
known economist, Yves Guyot, the great French
constitutional lawyer, Emile Acollas, together with
letters literally by the hundred from poor men and
women thanking and blessing us for the stand taken.
Noticeable were the numbers of letters from clergy-
men's wives, and wives of ministers of all denomi-
nations.

After our arrest we were taken to the police-station
in Bridewell Place, and thence to the Guildhall, where
Alderman Figgins was sitting, before whom we duly
appeared, while in the back of the court waited what
an official described as " a regular waggon-load of
bail." We were quickly released, the preliminary
investigation being fixed for ten days later — April 1 7th.
At the close of the day the magistrate released us
on our own recognisances, without bail ; and it was
so fully seen on all sides that we were fighting for
a principle that no bail was asked for during the
various stages of the trial. Two days later we were
committed for trial at the Central Criminal Court,

14

210 ANNIE BESANT.

but Mr. Bradlaugh moved for a writ of certiorari
to remove the trial to the Court of Queen's Bench ;
Lord Chief Justice Cockburn said he would grant
the writ if " upon looking at it (the book), we think
its object is the legitimate one of promoting know-
ledge on a matter of human interest," but not if
the science were only a cover for impurity, and he
directed that copies of the book should be handed
in for perusal by himself and Mr. Justice Mellor.
Having read the book they granted the writ.

The trial commenced on June i8th before the Lord
Chief Justice of England and a special jury. Sir
Hardinge Giffard, the Solicitor-General of the Tory
Government, leading against us, and we defending
ourselves. The Lord Chief Justice *' summed up
strongly for an acquittal," as a morning paper said ;
he declared that "a more ill-advised and more in-
judicious proceeding in the way of a prosecution
was probably never brought into a court of justice,"
and described us as "two enthusiasts who have been
actuated by a desire to do good in a particular de-
partment of society." He then went on to a splendid
statement of the law of population, and ended by
praising our straightforwardness and asserting Knowl-
ton's honesty of intention. Every one in court thought
that we had won our case, but they had not taken into
account the religious and political hatred against us
and the presence on the jury of such men as Mr.
Walter, of the Times. After an hour and thirty-
five minutes of delay the verdict was a compromise :
" We are unanimously of opinion that the book in ques-

THE KNOWLTON PAMPHLET. 211

tion is calculated to deprave public morals, but at the
same time we entirely exonerate the defendants from
any corrupt motive in publishing it." The Lord Chief
Justice looked troubled, and said that he should
have to translate the verdict into one of guilty,
and on that some of the jury turned to leave the
box, it having been agreed — we heard later from one
of them — that if the verdict were not accepted in
that form they should retire again, as six of the jury
were against convicting us ; but the foreman, who was
bitterly hostile, jumped at the chance of snatching
a conviction, and none of those in our favour had
the courage to contradict him on the spur of the
moment, so the foreman's " Guilty " passed, and the
judge set us free, on Mr. Bradlaugh's recognisances
to come up for judgment that day week.

On that day we moved to quash the indictment
and for a new trial, partly on a technical ground
and partly on the ground that the verdict, having
acquitted us of wrong motive, was in our favour,
not against us. On this the Court did not agree with
us, holding that the part of the indictment alleging
corrupt motive was superfluous. Then came the
question of sentence, and on this the Lord Chief
Justice did his best to save us ; we were acquitted
of any intent to violate the law ; would we submit
to the verdict of the jury and promise not to sell the
book .'' No, we would not ; we claimed the right
to sell, and meant to vindicate it. The judge pleaded,
argued, finally got angry with us, and, at last, com-
pelled to pass sentence, he stated that if we would

212 ANNIE BESANT.

have yielded he would have let us go free without
penalty, but that as we would set ourselves against
the law, break it and defy it — a sore offence from
the judge's point of view — he could only pass a
heavy sentence on each of six months' imprisonment,
a fine of ;^2oo, and recognisances of ,^500 for two
years, and this, as he again repeated, upon the
assumption " that they do intend to set the law at
defiance." Even despite this he made us first-class
misdemeanants. Then, as Mr. Bradlaugh stated that
we should move for a writ of error, he liberated
us on Mr. Bradlaugh's recognisance for ;^ioo, the
queerest comment on his view of the case and of
our characters, since we were liable jointly to ^1,400
under the sentence, to say nothing of the imprison-
ment. But prison and money penalties vanished into
thin air, for the writ of error was granted, proved
successful, and the verdict was quashed.

Then ensued a somewhat anxious time. We were
resolute to continue selling ; were our opponents
equally resolved to prosecute us? We could not
tell. I wrote a pamphlet entitled " The Law of
Population," giving the arguments which had con-
vinced me of its truth, the terrible distress and degra-
dation entailed on families by overcrowding and the
lack of the necessaries of life, pleading for early
marriages that prostitution might be destroyed, and
limitation of the family that pauperism might be
avoided ; finally, giving the information v/hich ren-
dered early marriage without these evils possible. This
pamphlet was put in circulation as representing our

cH-UiLEs b.{aii:-m;gh m.i'

THE KNOWLTON PAMPHLET. 213

view of the subject, and we again took up the sale of
Knowlton's. Mr. Bradlaugh carried the war into the
enemy's country, and commenced an action against
the police for the recovery of some pamphlets they had
seized ; he carried the action to a successful issue,
recovered the pamphlets, bore them off in triumph,
and we sold them all with an inscription across them,
" Recovered from the police." We continued the sale
of Knowlton's tract for some time, until we received
an intimation that no further prosecution would be
attempted, and on this we at once dropped its publica-
tion, substituting for it my " Law of Population."

But the worst part of the fight, for me, was to come.
Prosecution of the " Law of Population " was
threatened, but never commenced ; a worse weapon
against me was in store. An attempt had been made
in August, 1875, ^° deprive me of the custody of my
little girl by hiding her away when she went on her
annual visit of one month to her father, but I had
promptly recovered her by threatening to issue a writ
of habeas corpus. Now it was felt that the Knowlton
trial might be added to the charges of blasphemy that
could be urged against me, and that this double-
barrelled gun might be discharged with effect. I
received notice in January, 1878, that an appHcation
was to be made to the High Court of Chancery to
deprive me of the child, but the petition was not filed
till the following April. Mabel was dangerously ill
with scarlet fever at the time, and though this fact was
communicated to her father I received a copy of the
petition while sitting at her bedside. The petition

214 ANNIE BESANT.

alleged that, " The said Annie Besant is, by addresses,
lectures, and writings, endeavouring to propagate the
principles of Atheism, and has published a book
entitled * The Gospel of Atheism/ She has also
associated herself with an infidel lecturer and author
named Charles Bradlaugh in giving lectures and in
publishing books and pamphlets, whereby the truth of
the Christian religion is impeached, and disbelief in all
religion inculcated."

It flirther alleged against me the publication of
the Knowlton pamphlet, and the writing of the " Law
of Population." Unhappily, the petition came for
hearing before the then Master of the Rolls, Sir George
Jessel, a man animated by the old spirit of Hebrew
bigotry, to which he had added the time-serving
morality of a " man of the world," sceptical as to all
sincerity, and contemptuous of all devotion to an un-
popular cause. The treatment I received at his
hands on my first appearance in court told me what I
had to expect. I had already had some experience of
English judges, the stately kindness and gentleness of
the Lord Chief Justice, the perfect impartiality and
dignified courtesy of the Lords Justices of Appeal.
My astonishment, then, can be imagined when, in
answer to a statement by Mr. Ince, Q.C., that I ap-
peared in person, I heard a harsh, loud voice exclaim :

" Appear in person ? A lady appear in person .?
Never heard of such a thing ! Does the lady really
appear in person ? "

As the London papers had been full of my appearing
in person in the other courts and had contained the

THE KNOWLTON PAMPHLET. 215

high compliments of the Lord Chief Justice on my
conduct of my own case. Sir George Jessel's pretended
astonishment seemed a little overdone. After a variety
of similar remarks delivered in the most grating tones
and in the roughest manner, Sir George Jessel tried to
obtain his object by browbeating me directly.

" Is this the lady .? "

" I am the respondent, my lord, Mrs. Besant."

" Then I advise you, Mrs. Besant, to employ
counsel to represent you, if you can afford it ; and I
suppose you can."

" With all submission to your lordship, I am afraid I
must claim my right of arguing my case in person."

" You will do so if you please, of course, but I
think you had much better appear by counsel. I give
you notice that, if you do not, you must not expect to
be shown any consideration. You will not be heard
by me at any greater length than the case requires, nor
allowed to go into irrelevant matter, as persons who
argue their own cases usually do."

" I trust I shall not do so, my lord ; but in any case
I shall be arguing under your lordship's complete
control."

This encouraging beginning may be taken as a
sample of the case — it was one long fight against
clever counsel, aided by a counsel instead of a judge on
the bench. Only once did judge and counsel fall out.
Mr. Ince and Mr. Bardswell had been arguing that
my Atheism and Malthusianism made me an unfit
guardian for my child ; Mr. Ince declared that Mabel,
educated by me, would " be helpless for good in this

2i6 ANNIE BESANT.

world," and " hopeless for good hereafter, outcast
in this life and damned in the next." Mr. Bardswell
implored the judge to consider that my custody of her
" would be detrimental to the future prospects of the
child in society, to say nothing of her eternal prospects."
Had not the matter been to me of such heart-breaking
importance, I could have laughed at the mixture of
Mrs. Grundy, marriage establishment, and hell, pre-
sented as an argument for robbing a mother of her
child. But Mr. Bardswell carelessly forgot that Sir
George Jessel was a Jew, and lifting eyes to heaven in
horrified appeal, he gasped out :

" Your lordship, I think, will scarcely credit it, but
Mrs. Besant says, in a later affidavit, that she took
away the Testament from the child because it con-
tained coarse passages unfit for a child to read."

The opportunity was too tempting for a Jew to
refrain from striking at a book written by apostate
Jews, and Sir George Jessel answered sharply :

"It is not true to say there are no passages unfit for
a child's reading, because I think there are a great
many."

" I do not know of any passages that could fairly be
called coarse."

" I cannot quite assent to that."

Barring this little episode judge and counsel showed
a charming unanimity. I distinctly said I was an
Atheist, that I had withdrawn the child from religious
instruction at the day-school she attended, that I had
written various anti-Christian books, and so on ; but I
claimed the child's custody on the ground that the

THE KNOWLTON PAMPHLET. 217

deed of separation distinctly gave it to me, and had
been executed by her father after I had left the
Christian Church, and that my opinions were not
sufficient to invalidate it. It was admitted on the
other side that the child was admirably cared for,
and there was no attempt at attacking my personal
character. The judge stated that I had taken the
greatest possible care of the child, but decided that the
mere fact of my refusing to give the child religious
instruction was sufficient ground for depriving me of
her custody. Secular education he regarded as " not
only reprehensible, but detestable, and likely to work
utter ruin to the child, and I certainly should upon
this ground alone decide that this child ought not to
remain another day under the care of her mother."

Sir George Jessel denounced also my Malthusian
views in a fashion at once so brutal and so untruthful
as to facts, that some years later another judge, the
senior puisne judge of the Supreme Court of New
South Wales, declared in a judgment delivered in his
own court that there was " no language used by Lord
Cockburn which justified the Master of the Rolls in
assuming that Lord Cockburn regarded the book as
obscene," and that " little weight is to be attached to
his opinion on a point not submitted for his decision " ;
he went on to administer a sharp rebuke for the way in
which Sir George Jessel travelled outside the case, and
remarked that " abuse, however, of an unpopular
opinion, whether indulged in by judges or other people,
is not argument, nor can the vituperation of opponents
in opinion prove them to be immoral." However, Sir

2i8 ANNIE BESANT.

George Jessel was all-powerful in his own court, and
he deprived me of my child, refusing to stay the order
even until the hearing of my appeal against his decision.
A messenger from the father came to my house, and the
little child was carried away by main force, shrieking
and struggling, still weak from the fever, and nearly
frantic with fear and passionate resistance. No access
to her was given me, and I gave notice that if access
were denied me, I would sue for a restitution of con-
jugal rights, merely that I might see my children. But
the strain had been too great, and I nearly went mad,
spending hours pacing up and down the empty rooms,
striving to weary myself to exhaustion that I might forget.
The loneliness and silence of the house, of which my
darling had always been the sunshine and the music,
weighed on me like an evil dream ; I listened for the
patter of the dancing feet, and merry, thrilling laughter
that rang through the garden, the sweet music of the
childish voice ; during my sleepless nights I missed in
the darkness the soft breathing of the little child ; each
morning I longed in vain for the clinging arms and soft,
sweet kisses. At last health broke down, and fever
struck me, and mercifully gave me the rest of pain
and delirium instead of the agony of conscious loss.
Through that terrible illness, day after day, Mr. Brad-
laugh came to me, and sat writing beside me, feeding
me with ice and milk, refused from all others, and
behaving more like a tender mother than a man friend ;
he saved my life, though it seemed to me for awhile of
little value, till the first months of lonely pain were
over. When recovered, I took steps to set aside an

THE KNOWLTON PAMPHLET. 219

order obtained by Mr. Besant during my illness, for-
bidding me to bring any suit against him, and even the
Master of the Rolls, on hearing that all access had been
denied to me, and the money due to me stopped,
uttered words of strong condemnation of the way in
which I had been treated. Finally the deed of separa-
tion executed in 1873 was held to be good as protecting
Mr. Besant from any suit brought by me, whether for
divorce or for restitution of conjugal rights, while the
clauses giving me the custody of the child were set
aside. The Court of Appeal in April, 1879, upheld
the decision, the absolute right of the father as against
a married mother being upheld. This ignoring of all
right to her children on the part of the married mother
is a scandal and a wrong that has since been redressed
by Parliament, and the husband has no longer in his
grasp this instrument of torture, whose power to
agonise depends on the tenderness and strength of the
motherliness of the wife. In the days when the law
took my child from me, it virtually said to all women :
" Choose which of these two positions, as wife and
mother, you will occupy. If you are legally your
husband's wife, you can have no legal claim to your
children ; if legally you are your husband's mistress,
your rights as mother are secure." That stigma on
marriage is now removed.

One thing I gained in the Court of Appeal. The
Court expressed a strong view as to my right of access,
and directed me to apply to Sir George Jessel for it,
adding that it could not doubt he would grant it.
Under cover of this I applied to the Master of the

220 ANNIE BESANT.

Rolls, and obtained liberal access to the children ;
but I found that my visits kept Mabel in a continual
state of longing and fretting for me, while the in-
genious forms of petty insult that were devised against
me and used in the children's presence would soon
become palpable to them and cause continual pain.
So, after a painful struggle with myself, I resolved to
give up the right of seeing them, feeling that thus only
could I save them from constantly recurring conflict,
destructive of all happiness and of all respect for one
or the other parent. Resolutely I turned my back on
them that I might spare them trouble, and determined
that, robbed of my own, I would be a mother to all
helpless children I could aid, and cure the pain at my
own heart by soothing the pain of others.

As far as regards this whole struggle over the
Knowlton pamphlet, victory was finally won all along
the line. Not only did we, as related, recover all our
seized pamphlets, and continue the sale till all prosecu-
tion and threat of prosecution were definitely surren-
dered ; but my own tract had an enormous sale, so that
when I withdrew it from sale in June, 1891, I was
offered a large sum for the copyright, an offer which I,
of course, refused. Since that time not a copy has been
sold with my knowledge or permission, but long ere
that the pamphlet had received a very complete legal
vindication. For while it circulated untouched in
England, a prosecution was attempted against it in
New South Wales, but was put an end to by an
eloquent and luminous judgment by the senior puisne
judge of the Supreme Court, Mr. Justice Windmeyer,

THE KNOWLTON PAMPHLET. 221

in December, 1888. This judge, the most respected
in the great Australian colony, spoke out plainly and
strongly on the morality of such teaching.

" Take the case," he said, " of a woman married to
a drunken husband, steadily ruining his constitution
and hastening to the drunkard's doom, loss of employ-
ment for himself, semi-starvation for his family, and
finally death, without a shilling to leave those whom
he has brought into the world, but armed with the
authority of the law to treat his wife as his slave, ever
brutally insisting on the indulgence of his marital
rights. Where is the immorality, if, already broken
in health from unresting maternity, having already
a larger family than she can support when the miser-
able breadwinner has drunk himself to death, the
woman avails herself of the information given in this
book, and so averts the consequences of yielding to
her husband's brutal insistence on his marital rights.?
Already weighted with a family that she is unable
to decently bring up, the immorality, it seems to me,
would be in the reckless and criminal disregard of
precautions which would prevent her bringing into
the world daughters whose future outlook as a career
would be prostitution, or sons whose inherited taint
of alcoholism would soon drag them down with their
sisters to herd with the seething mass of degenerate
and criminal humanity that constitutes the dangerous
classes of great cities. In all these cases the appeal is
from thoughtless, unreasoning prejudice to conscience,
and, if listened to, its voice will be heard unmistakably
indicating where the path of duty lies."

222 ANNIE BESANT.

The judge forcibly refused to be any party to the
prohibition of such a pamphlet, regarding it as of high
service to the community. He said : " So strong is
the dread of the world's censure upon this topic that
few have the courage openly to express their views
upon it ; and its nature is such that it is only amongst
thinkers who discuss all subjects, or amongst intimate
acquaintances, that community of thought upon the
question is discovered. But let any one inquire
amongst those who have sufficient education and
ability to think for themselves, and who do not idly
float, slaves to the current of conventional opinion,
and he will discover that numbers of men and women
of purest lives, of noblest aspirations, pious, cultivated,
and refined, see no wrong in teaching the ignorant that
it is wrong to bring into the world children to whom
they cannot do justice, and who think it folly to stop
short in telling them simply and plainly how to prevent
it. A more robust view of morals teaches that it is
puerile to ignore human passions and human phy-
siology. A clearer perception of truth and the safety
of trusting to it teaches that in law, as in religion, it
is useless trying to limit the knowledge of mankind by
any inquisitorial attempts to place upon a judicial
Index Expurgatorius works written with an earnest
purpose, and commending themselves to thinkers of
well-balanced minds. I will be no party to any such
attempt. I do not believe that it was ever meant that
the Obscene Publication Act should apply to cases of
this kind, but only to the publication of such matter as
all good men would regard as lewd and filthy, to lewd

THE KNOWLTON PAMPHLET. 223

and bawdy novels, pictures and exhibitions, evidently
published and given for lucre's sake. It could never
have been intended to stifle the expression of thought
by the earnest-minded on a subject of transcendent
national importance like the present, and I will not
strain it for that purpose. As pointed out by Lord
Cockburn in the case of the Queen v. Bradlaugh and
Besant, all prosecutions of this kind should be re-
garded as mischievous, even by those who disapprove
the opinions sought to be stifled, inasmuch as they only
tend more widely to difiiise the teaching objected to.
To those, on the other hand, who desire its promulga-
tion, it must be a matter of congratulation that this,
like all attempted persecutions of thinkers, will defeat
its own object, and that truth, like a torch, * the more
it's shook it shines.' "

The argument of Mr. Justice Windmeyer for the Neo-
Malthusian position was (as any one may see who
reads the full text of the judgment) one of the most
luminous and cogent I have ever read. The judgment
was spoken of at the time in the English press as a
*' brilliant triumph for Mrs. Besant," and so I suppose
it was ; but no legal judgment could undo the harm
wrought on the public mind in England by malignant
and persistent misrepresentation. What that trial and
its results cost me in pain no one but myself will ever
know ; on the other hand, there was the passionate
gratitude evidenced by letters from thousands of poor
married women — many from the wives of country
clergymen and curates — thanking and blessing me for
showing them how to escape from the veritable hell in

224 ANNIE BESANT.

which they Hved. The " upper classes " of society
know nothing about the way in which the poor live ;
how their overcrowding destroys all sense of personal
dignity, of modesty, of outward decency, till human
life, as Bishop Fraser justly said, is " degraded below
the level of the swine." To such, and among such I
went, and I could not grudge the price that then
seemed to me as the ransom for their redemption. To
me, indeed, it meant the losing of all that made life
dear, but for them it seemed to be the gaining of all
that gave hope of a better future. So how could
I hesitate — I whose heart had been fired by devotion
to an ideal Humanity, inspired by that Materialism
that is of love and not of hate ^

And now, in August, 1893, we find the Christian
Worlds the representative organ of orthodox Christian
Protestantism, proclaiming the right and the duty of
voluntary limitation of the family. In a leading article,
after a number of letters had been inserted, it said : —

" The conditions are assuredly wrong which bring one
member of the married partnership into a bondage so
cruel. It is no less evident that the cause of the
bondage in such cases lies in the too rapid multiplica-
tion of the family. There was a time when any idea of
voluntary limitation was regarded by pious people as
interfering with Providence. We are beyond that
now, and have become capable of recognising that
Providence works through the common sense of in-
dividual brains. We limit population just as much by
deferring marriage from prudential motives as by any
action that may be taken after it. . . . Apart from

THE KNOWLTON PAMPHLET. 225

certain methods of limitation, the morality of which is
gravely questioned by many, there are certain easily-
understood physiological laws of the subject, the failure
to know and to observe which is inexcusable on the
part either of men or women in these circumstances.
It is worth noting in this connection that Dr. Billings,
in his article in this month's Forum^ on the diminishing
birth-rate of the United States, gives as one of the
reasons the greater diffusion of intelligence, by means
of popular and school treatises on physiology, than
formerly prevailed."

Thus has opinion changed in sixteen years, and all
the obloquy poured on us is seen to have been the
outcome of ignorance and bigotry.

As for the children, what was gained by their separa-
tion from me ^ The moment they were old enough to
free themselves, they came back to me, my little girl's
too brief stay with me being ended by her happy
marriage, and I fancy the fears expressed for her
eternal future will prove as groundless as the fears for
her temporal ruin have proved to be ! Not only so,
but both are treading in my steps as regards their
views of the nature and destiny of man, and have
joined in their bright youth the Theosophical Society
to which, after so many struggles, I won my way.

The struggle on the right to discuss the prudential
restraint of population did not, however, conclude
without a martyr. Mr. Edward Truelove, alluded to
above, was prosecuted for selling a treatise by Robert
Dale Owen on " Moral Physiology," and a pamphlet
entitled, " Individual, Family, and National Poverty."

226 ANNIE BESANT.

He was tried on February i, 1878, before the Lord
Chief Justice in the Court of Queen's Bench, and was
most ably defended by Professor W. A. Hunter.
The jury spent two hours in considering their verdict,
and returned into court and stated that they were
unable to agree. The majority of the jury were ready
to convict, if they felt sure that Mr. Truelove would
not be punished, but one of them boldly declared in
court : " As to the book, it is written in plain
language for plain people, and I think that many more
persons ought to know what the contents of the book
are." The jury was discharged, in consequence of this
one man's courage, but Mr. Truelove's persecutors —
the Vice Society — were determined not to let their
victim free. They proceeded to trial a second time,
and wisely endeavoured to secure a special jury, feeling
that as prudential restraint would raise wages by
limiting the supply of labour, they would be more
likely to obtain a verdict from a jury of *' gentlemen "
than from one composed of workers. This attempt
was circumvented by Mr. Truelove's legal advisers,
who let a procedendo go which sent back the trial to
the Old Bailey. The second trial was held on May
1 6th at the Central Criminal Court before Baron
Pollock and a common jury. Professor Hunter and
Mr. J. M. Davidson appearing for the defence. The
jury convicted, and the brave old man, sixty-eight
years of age, was condemned to four months' im-
prisonment and jC^o fine for selling a pamphlet
which had been sold unchallenged, during a period
of forty-five years, by James Watson, George

THE KNOWLTON PAMPHLET. 227

Jacob Holyoake, Austin Holyoake, and Charles
Watts. Mr. Grain, the counsel employed by the
Vice Society, most unfairly used against Mr. Truelove
my " Law of Population," a pamphlet which contained,
Baron Pollock said, "the head and front of the
offence in the other [the Knowlton] case." I find an
indignant protest against this odious unfairness in the
National Reformer for May 1 9th : *' My ' Law of
Population ' was used against Mr. Truelove as an
aggravation of his offence, passing over the utter
meanness — worthy only ofCollette — of using against a
prisoner a book whose author has never been attacked
for writing it — does Mr. Collette, or do the authorities,
imagine that the severity shown to Mr. Truelove
will in any fashion deter me from continuing the
Malthusian propaganda ? Let me here assure them,
one and all, that it will do nothing of the kind ; I
shall continue to sell the 'Law of Population ' and to
advocate scientific checks to population, just as though
Mr. Collette and his Vice Society were all dead and
buried. In commonest justice they are bound to
prosecute me, and if they get, and keep, a verdict
against me, and succeed in sending me to prison, they
will only make people more anxious to read my book,
and make me more personally powerful as a teacher of
the views which they attack."

A persistent attempt was made to obtain a writ of
error in Mr. Truelove's case, but the Tory Attorney-
General, Sir John Holker, refused it, although the
ground on which it was asked was one of the grounds
on which a similar writ had been granted to Mr.

228 ANNIE BESANT.

Bradlaugh and myself. Mr. Truelove was therefore
compelled to suffer his sentence, but memorials, signed
by ii,ooo persons, asking for his release, were sent to
the Home Secretary from every part of the country,
and a crowded meeting in St. James's Hall, London,
demanded his liberation with only six dissentients.
The whole agitation did not shorten Mr. Truelove's
sentence by a single day, and he was not released from
Coldbath Fields Prison until September 5th. On the
I2,th of the same month the Hall of Science was
crowded with enthusiastic friends, who assembled to do
him honour, and he was presented with a beautifully-
illuminated address and a purse containing £1']']
(subsequent subscriptions raised the amount to £1^^
1 6s. 6d.).

It is scarcely necessary to say that one of the results
of the prosecution was a great agitation throughout the
country, and a wide popularisation of Malthusian views.
Some huge demonstrations were held in favour of free
discussion ; on one occasion the Free Trade Hall,
Manchester, was crowded to the doors ; on another
the Star Music Hall, Bradford, was crammed in every
corner ; on another the Town Hall, Birmingham, had
not a seat or a bit of standing-room unoccupied.
Wherever we went, separately or together, it was the
same story, and not only were Malthusian lectures
eagerly attended, and Malthusian literature eagerly
bought, but curiosity brought many to listen to our
Radical and Freethought lectures, and thousands heard
for the first time what Secularism really meant.

The Press, both London and provincial, agreed in

THE KNOWLTON PAMPHLET. 229

branding the prosecution as foolish, and it was generally
remarked that it resulted only in the wider circulation
of the indicted book, and the increased popularity of
those who had stood for the right of publication. The
furious attacks since made upon us have been made
chiefly by those who differ from us in theological creed,
and who have found a misrepresentation of our prose-
cution served them as a convenient weapon of attack.
During the last few years public opinion has been
gradually coming round to our side, in consequence of
the pressure of poverty resulting from widespread depres-
sion of trade, and during the sensation caused in 1 8 84
by " The Bitter Cry of Outcast London," many writers
in the Daily News — notably Mr. G. R. Sims — boldly
alleged that the distress was to a great extent due to the
large families of the poor, and mentioned that we had
been prosecuted for giving the very knowledge which
would bring salvation to the sufferers in our great
cities.

Among the useful results of the prosecution was the
establishment of the Malthusian League, "to agitate
for the abolition of all penalties on the public discussion
of the population question," and " to spread among the
people, by all practicable means, a knowledge of the
law of population, of its consequences, and of its
bearing upon human conduct and morals." The first
general meeting of the League was held at the Hall of
Science on July 26, 1877, ^^^ ^ council of twenty
persons was elected, and this council on August 2nd
elected Dr. C. R. Drysdale, M.D., President ; Mr.
Swaagman, Treasurer ; Mrs. Besant, Secretary ; Mr.

230 ANNIE BESANT.

Shearer, Assistant-Secretary ; and Mr. Hember, Financial
Secretary. Since 1877 the League, under the same in-
defatigable president, has worked hard to carry out its
objects ; it has issued a large number of leaflets and
tracts ; it supports a monthly journal, the Malthusian ;
numerous lectures have been delivered under its auspices
in all parts of the country ; and it has now a medical
branch, into which none but duly qualified medical men
and women are admitted, with members in all European
countries.

Another result of the prosecution was the accession
of *• D." to the staff of the National Reformer. This
able and thoughtful writer came forward and joined our
ranks as soon as he heard of the attack on us, and he
further volunteered to conduct the journal during our
expected imprisonment. From that time to this — a
period of fifteen years — articles from his pen appeared
in its columns week by week, and during all that
time not one solitary difficulty arose between editors
and contributor. In public a trustworthy colleague,
in private a warm and sincere friend, " D." proved
an unmixed benefit bestowed upon us by the prose-
cution.

Nor was "D." the only friend brought to us by our
foes. I cannot ever think of that time without
remembering that the prosecution brought me first
into close intimacy with Mrs. Annie Parris — the wife
of Mr. Touzeau Parris, the Secretary of the Defence
Committee throughout all the fight — a lady who, during
that long struggle, and during the, for me, far worse
struggle that succeeded it, over the custody of my

THE KNOWLTON PAMPHLET. 231

daughter, proved to me the most loving and sisterly of
friends. One or two other friendships which will, I
hope, last my life, date from that same time of strife
and anxiety.

The amount of money subscribed by the public
during the Knowlton and succeeding prosecutions
gives some idea of the interest felt in the struggle.
The Defence Fund Committee in March, 1878, pre-
sented a balance-sheet, showing subscriptions amounting
to ;^ 1, 292 5s. 4d., and total expenditure in the Queen
V. Bradlaugh and Besant, the Queen v. Truelove, and
the appeal against Mr. Vaughan's order (the last two
up to date) of ^^ 1,274 los. This account was then
closed and the balance of ^17 15s. 4d. passed on to a
new fund for the defence of Mr. Truelove, the carry-
ing on of the appeal against the destruction of the
Knowlton pamphlet, and the bearing of the costs
incident on the petition lodged against myself. In
July this new fund had reached £i<^^ i6s. 7d., and
after paying the remainder of the costs in Mr. True-
love's case, a balance of £26 15s. 2d. was carried on.
This again rose to ;^247 15s. 2jd., and the fund bore
the expenses of Mr. Bradlaugh's successful appeal on
the Knowlton pamphlet, the petition and subsequent
proceedings in which I was concerned in the Court of
Chancery, and an appeal on Mr. Truelove's behalf,
unfortunately unsuccessful, against an order for the
destruction of the Dale Owen pamphlet. This last
decision was given on February 21, 1880, and on this
the Defence Fund was closed. On Mr. Truelove's
release, as mentioned above, a testimonial to the

232 ANNIE BESANT.

amount of ^197 i6s. 6d. was presented to him, and
after the close of the struggle some anonymous friend
sent to me personally £100 as " thanks for the courage
and ability shown." In addition to all this, the Mal-
thusian League received no less than £^SS ^^s. gd..
during the first year of its life, and started on its
second year with a balance in hand of ^^77 5s. 8d.

A somewhat similar prosecution in America, in which
the bookseller, Mr. D. M. Bennett, sold a book with
which he did not agree, and was imprisoned, led to our
giving him a warm welcome when, after his release, he
visited England. We entertained him at the Hall of
Science at a crowded gathering, and I was deputed as
spokesman to present him with a testimonial. This I
did in the following speech, quoted here in order to
show the spirit then animating me : —

" Friends, Mr. Bradlaugh has spoken of the duty
that calls us here to-night. It is pleasant to think
that in our work that duty is one to which we are
not unaccustomed. In our army there are more true
soldiers than traitors, more that are faithful to the trust
of keeping the truth than those who shrink when the
hour of danger comes. And I would ask Mr. Bennett
to-night not to measure English feeling towards him
by the mere number of those present. They that are
here are representatives of many thousands of our
fellow-countrymen. Glance down this middle table,
and you will see that it is not without some right that
we claim to welcome you in the name of multitudes of
the citizens of England. There are those who taunt
us with want of loyalty, and with the name of infidels.

THE KNOWLTON PAMPHLET. 233

In what church will they find men and women more
loyal to truth and conscience? The name infidel is
not for us so long as we are faithful to the truth we
know. If I speak, as I have done, of national repre-
sentation in this hall this evening, tell me, you who
know those who sit here, who have watched some of
them for years, others of them but for a brief time,
do I not speak truth ? Take them one by one. Your
President but a little while ago in circumstances similar
to those wherein our guest himself was placed, with the
true lover's keenness that recognises the mistress under
all disguise, beholding his mistress Liberty in danger,
under circumstances that would have blinded less sure
eyes, leapt to her rescue. He risked the ambition of
his life rather than be disloyal to liberty. And next is
seated a woman, who, student of a noble profession,
thought that liberty had greater claim upon her than
even her work. When we stood in worse peril than
even loss of liberty, she risked her own good name
for the truth's sake. One also is here who, eminent
in his own profession, came with the weight of his
position and his right to speak, and gave a kindred
testimony. One step further, and you see one who,
soldier to liberty, throughout a long and spotless life,
when the task was far harder than it is to-day, when
there were no greetings, no welcomes, when to serve
was to peril name as well as liberty, never flinched
from the first until now. He is crowned with the
glory of the jail, that was his for no crime but for
claiming the right to publish that wherein the noblest
thought is uttered in the bravest words. And next

234 ANNIE BESANT.

him is another who speaks for hberty, who has brought
culture, university degree, position in men's sight, and
many friends, and cast them all at her beloved feet.
Sir, not alone the past and the present greet you
to-night. The future also greets you with us. We
have here also those who are training themselves to
walk in the footsteps of the one most dear to them,
who shall carry on, when we have passed away, the
work which we shall have dropped from our hands.
But he whom we delight to honour at this hour in
truth honours us, in that he allows us to oiFer him the
welcome that it is our glory and our pleasure to give.
He has fought bravely. The Christian creed had in
its beginning more traitors and less true hearts than the
creed of to-day. We are happy to-day not only in the
thought of what manner of men we have for leaders,
but in the thought of what manner of men we have as
soldiers in our army. Jesus had twelve apostles. One
betrayed Him for thirty pieces of silver ; a second
denied Him. They all forsook Him and fled. We
can scarcely point to one who has thus deserted our
sacred cause. The traditions of our party tell us of
many who went to jail because they claimed for all
that right of free speech which is the heritage of all.
One of the most famous members of our body in
England, Richard Carlile, turned bookseller to sell
books that were prosecuted. This man became Free-
thinker, driven thereto by the bigotry and wickedness
of the Churches. He sold the books of Hone not
because he agreed with them, but because Hone was
prosecuted. He saw that the book in whose prosecu-

THE KNOWLTON PAMPHLET. 235

tion freedom was attacked was the book for the freeman
to sell ; and the story of our guest shows that in all
this England and America are one. Those who gave
Milton to the world can yet bring forth men of the
same stamp in continents leagues asunder. Because
our friend was loyal and true, prison had to him no
dread. It was far, far less of dishonour to wear the
garb of the convict than to wear that of the hypocrite.
The society we represent, like his society in America,
pleads for free thought, speaks for free speech, claims
for every one, however antagonistic, the right to speak
the thought he feels. It is better that this should be,
even though the thought be wrong, for thus the sooner
will its error be discovered — better if the thought be
right, for then the sooner does the gladness of a new
truth find place in the heart of man. As the mouth-
piece, Sir, of our National Secular Society, and of its
thousands of members, I speak to you now : —

" ♦ ADDRESS.

" ' We seek for Truth'

"'To D. M. Bennett.
" * In asking you to accept at the hands of the
National Secular Society of England this symbol of
cordial sympathy and brotherly welcome, we are but
putting into act the motto of our Society. *' We seek
for Truth " is our badge, and it is as Truthseeker that
we do you homage to-night. Without free speech no
search for Truth is possible ; without free speech no
discovery of Truth is useful ; without free speech

236 ANNIE BESANT.

progress is checked, and the nations no longer march
forward towards the nobler life which the future holds
for man. Better a thousandfold abuse of free speech
than denial of free speech. The abuse dies in a day ;
the denial slays the life of the people and entombs the
hope of the race.

" * In your own country you have pleaded for free
speech, and when, under a wicked and an odious law,
one of your fellow-citizens was imprisoned for the
publication of his opinions, you, not sharing the
opinions but faithful to liberty, sprang forward to
defend in him the principle of free speech which you
claimed for yourself, and sold his book while he lay in
prison. For this act you were in turn arrested and
sent to jail, and the country which won its freedom
by the aid of Paine in the eighteenth century disgraced
itself in the nineteenth by the imprisonment of a heretic.
The Republic of the United States dishonoured her-
self, and not you, in Albany penitentiary. Two
hundred thousand of your countrymen pleaded for
your release, but bigotry was too strong. We sent
you greeting in your captivity ; we rejoiced when the
time came for your release. We offer you to-night
our thanks and our hope — thanks for the heroism
which never flinched in the hour of battle, hope for
a more peaceful future, in which the memory of a past
pain may be a sacred heritage and not a regret.

"* Charles Bradlaugh, President!

" Soldier of liberty, we give you this. Do in the
future the same good service that you have done in

THE KNOVVLTON PAMPHLET. 237

the past, and your reward shall be in the love that true
men shall bear to you."

That, however, which no force could compel me to
do, which I refused to threats of fine and prison, to
separation from my children, to social ostracism, and
to insults and ignominy worse to bear than death, I
surrendered fi-eely when all the struggle was over, and
a great part of society and of public opinion had adopted
the view that cost Mr. Bradlaugh and myself so dear.
I may as well complete the story here, so as not to
have to refer to it again. I gave up Neo-Malthusianism
in April, 1891, its renunciation being part of the out-
come of two years' instruction from Mdme. H. P.
Blavatsky, who showed me that however justifiable
Neo-Malthusianism might be while man was regarded
only as the most perfect outcome of physical evolution,
it was wholly incompatible with the view of man as a
spiritual being, whose material form and environment
were the results of his own mental activity. Why
and how I embraced Theosophy, and accepted H. P.
Blavatsky as teacher, will soon be told in its proper
place. Here I am concerned only with the why
and how of my renunciation of the Neo-Malthusian
teaching, for which I had fought so hard and suffered
so much.

When I built my life on the basis of Materialism I
judged all actions by their effect on human happiness
in this world now and in future generations, regarding
man as an organism that lived on earth and there
perished, with activities confined to earth and limited
by physical laws. The object of life was the ultimate

238 ANNIE BESANT.

building-up of a physically, mentally, morally perfect
man by the cumulative effects of heredity — mental and
moral tendencies being regarded as the outcome of
material conditions, to be slowly but surely evolved by
rational selection and the transmission to offspring of
qualities carefully acquired by, and developed in,
parents. The most characteristic note of this serious
and lofty Materialism had been struck by Professor
W. K . Clifford in his noble article on the " Ethics of
Belief"

Taking this view of human duty in regard to the
rational co-operation with nature in the evolution of
the human race, it became of the first importance to
rescue the control of the generation of offspring from
mere blind brute passion, and to transfer it to the
reason and to the intelligence ; to impress on parents
the sacredness of the parental office, the tremendous
responsibility of the exercise of the creative fiinction.
And since, fiirther, one of the most pressing problems
for solution in the older countries is that of poverty,
the horrible slums and dens into which are crowded
and in which are festering families of eight and ten
children, whose parents are earning an uncertain los.,
I2S., 15s., and 20s. a week ; since an immediate pallia-
tive is wanted, if popular risings impelled by starvation
are to be avoided ; since the lives of men and women
of the poorer classes, and of the worst paid professional
classes, are one long, heart-breaking struggle " to make
both ends meet and keep respectable " ; since in the
middle class marriage is often avoided, or delayed till
late in life, from the dread of the large family, and late

THE KNOWLTON PAMPHLET. 239

marriage is followed by its shadow, the prevalence of
vice and the moral and social ruin of thousands of
women ; for these, and many other reasons, the
teaching of the duty of limiting the family within
the means of subsistence is the logical outcome of
Materialism linked with the scientific view of evolu-
tion, and with a knowledge of the physical law, by
which evolution is accelerated or retarded. Seeking to
improve the physical type, scientific Materialism, it
seemed to me, must forbid parentage to any but
healthy married couples ; it must restrict childbearing
within the limits consistent with the thorough health
and physical well-being of the mother ; it must impose
it as a duty never to bring children into the world
unless the conditions for their fair nurture and develop-
ment are present. Regarding it as hopeless, as well as
mischievous, to preach asceticism, and looking on the
conjunction of nominal celibacy with widespread prosti-
tution as inevitable, from the constitution of human
nature, scientific Materialism — quite rationally and
logically — advises deliberate restriction of the pro-
duction of offspring, while sanctioning the exercise of
the sexual instinct within the limits imposed by
temperance, the highest physical and mental efficiency,
the good order and dignity of society, and the self-
respect of the individual.

In all this there is nothing which for one moment
implies approval of licentiousness, profligacy, unbridled
self-indulgence. On the contrary, it is a well-considered
and intellectually-defensible scheme of human evolution,
regarding all natural instincts as matters for regulation.

240 ANNIE BESANT.

not for destruction, and seeking to develop the perfectly
healthy and well-balanced physical body as the necessary
basis for the healthy and well-balanced mind. If the
premises of Materialism be true, there is no answer
to the Neo-Malthusian conclusions ; for even those
Socialists who have bitterly opposed the promulgation
of Neo-Malthusianism — regarding it as a " red herring
intended to draw the attention of the proletariat away
from the real cause of poverty, the monopoly of land
and capital by a class" — admit that when society is
built on the foundation of common property in all that
is necessary for the production of wealth, the time will
come for the consideration of the population question.
Nor do I now see, any more than I saw then, how any
Materialist can rationally avoid the Neo-Malthusian
position. For if man be the outcome of purely
physical causes, it is with these that we must deal in
guiding his fiiture evolution. If he be related but to
terrestrial existence, he is but the loftiest organism of
earth ; and, failing to see his past and his future, how
should my eyes not have been then blinded to the
deep-lying causes of his present woe? I brought
a material cure to a disease which appeared to me to
be of material origin ; but how when the evil came
from a subtler source, and its causes lay not on the
material plane ^ How if the remedy only set up new
causes for a future evil, and, while immediately a pal-
liative, strengthened the disease itself, and ensured its
reappearance in the future? This was the view of the
problem set before me by H. P. Blavatsky when she
unrolled the story of man, told of his origin and his

THE KNOWLTON PAMPHLET. 241

destiny, showed me the forces that went to the making
of man, and the true relation between his past, his
present, and his fiiture.

For what is man in the light of Theosophy ? He is
a spiritual intelligence, eternal and uncreate, treading a
vast cycle of human experience, born and reborn on
earth millennium after millennium, evolving slowly
into the ideal man. He is not the product of matter,
but is encased in matter, and the forms of matter with
which he clothes himself are of his own making. For
the intelligence and will of man are creative forces —
not creative ex nihiloy but creative as is the brain of
the painter — and these forces are exercised by man in
every act of thought. Thus he is ever creating round
him thought-forms, moulding subtlest matter into
shape by these energies, forms which persist as tangible
realities when the body of the thinker has long gone
back to earth and air and water. When the time for
rebirth into this earth-life comes for the soul these
thought-forms, its own progeny, help to form the
tenuous model into which the molecules of physical
matter are builded for the making of the body, and
matter is thus moulded for the new body in which the
soul is to dwell, on the lines laid down by the intelli-
gent and volitional life of the previous, or of many
previous, incarnations. So does each man create for
himself in verity the form wherein he functions, and
what he is in his present is the inevitable outcome of
his own creative energies in his past. Applying this
to the Neo-Malthusian theory, we see in sexual love
not only a passion which man has in common with the

i6

242 ANNIE BESANT.

brute, and which forms, at the present stage of evolu-
tion, a necessary part of human nature, but an animal
passion that may be trained and purified into a human
emotion, which may be used as one of the levers in
human progress, one of the factors in human growth.
But, instead of this, man in the past has made his
intellect the servant of his passions ; the abnormal
development of the sexual instinct in man — in whom
it is far greater and more continuous than in any brute
— is due to the mingling with it of the intellectual
element, all sexual thoughts, desires, and imaginations
having created thought-forms, which have been wrought
into the human race, giving rise to a continual demand,
far beyond nature, and in marked contrast with the
temperance of normal animal life. Hence it has
become one of the most fruitful sources of human
misery and human degradation, and the satisfaction of
its imperious cravings in civilised countries lies at the
root of our worst social evils. This excessive develop-
ment has to be fought against, and the instinct reduced
within natural limits, and this will certainly never be
done by easy-going self-indulgence within the marital
relation any more than by self-indulgence outside it.
By none other road than that of self-control and self-
denial can men and women now set going the causes
which will build for them brains and bodies of a higher
type for their future return to earth-life. They have
to hold this instinct in complete control, to transmute
it from passion into tender and self-denying affection,
to develop the intellectual at the expense of the
animal, and thus to raise the whole man to the human

THE KNOWLTON PAMPHLET. 243

stage, in which every intellectual and physical capacity
shall subserve the purposes of the soul. From all this
it follows that Theosophists should sound the note of
self-restraint within marriage, and the gradual — for
with the mass it cannot be sudden — restriction of the
sexual relation to the perpetuation of the race.

Such was the bearing of Theosophical teaching on
Neo-Malthusianism, as laid before me by H. P. Bla-
vatsky, and when I urged, out of my bitter knowledge
of the miseries endured by the poor, that it surely
might, for a time at least, be recommended as a pallia-
tive, as a defence in the hands of a woman against
intolerable oppression and enforced suffering, she bade
me look beyond the moment, and see how the suffering
must come back and back with every generation,
unless we sought to remove the roots of wrong.
" I do not judge a woman," she said, " who has
resort to such means of defence in the midst of cir-
cumstances so evil, and whose ignorance of the real
causes of all this misery is her excuse for snatching
at any relief. But it is not for you, an Occultist,
to continue to teach a method which you now know
must tend to the perpetuation of the sorrow."] I felt
that she was right, and though I shrank from the
decision — for my heart somewhat failed me at with-
drawing from the knowledge of the poor, so far as
I could, a temporary palliative of evils which too often
wreck their lives and bring many to an early grave,
worn old before even middle age has touched them —
yet the decision was made. I refused to reprint the
" Law of Population," or to sell the copyright, giving

244 ANNIE BESANT.

pain, as I sadly knew, to all the brave and loyal friends
who had so generously stood by me in that long
and bitter struggle, and who saw the results of vic-
tory thrown away on grounds to them inadequate
and mistaken. Will it always be, I wonder, in man's
climbing upward, that every step must be set on
his own heart and on the hearts of those he loves ?

CHAPTER X.

AT WAR ALL ROUND.

/^^OMING back to my work after my long and
^^ dangerous illness, I took up again its thread,
heartsick, but with courage unshaken, and I find my-
self in the National Reformer for September 15, 1878,
saying in a brief note of thanks that " neither the
illness nor the trouble which produced it has in any
fashion lessened my determination to work for the
cause." In truth, I plunged into work with added
vigour, for only in that did I find any solace, but
the pamphlets written at this time against Christianity
were marked with considerable bitterness, for it was
Christianity that had robbed me of my child, and
I struck mercilessly at it in return. In the political
struggles of that time, when the Beaconsfield Govern-
ment was in full swing, with its policy of annexation
and aggression, I played my part with tongue and
pen, and my articles in defence of an honest and
liberty-loving policy in India, against the invasion
of Afghanistan and other outrages, laid in many an
Indian heart a foundation of affection for me, and
seem to me now as a preparation for the work among
Indians to which much of my time and thought

a4S

246 ANNIE BESANT.

to-day are given. In November of this same year
(1878) I wrote a little book on " England, India, and
Afghanistan " that has brought me many a warm
letter of thanks, and with this, the carrying on of the
suit against Mr. Besant before alluded to, two and
often three lectures every Sunday, to say nothing of
the editorial work on the National Reformer, the
secretarial work on the Malthusian League, and stray
lectures during the week, my time was fairly well
filled. But I found that in my reading I developed
a tendency to let my thoughts wander from the subject
in hand, and that they would drift after my lost little
one, so I resolved to fill up the gaps in my scientific
education, and to amuse myself by reading up for some
examinations ; I thought it would serve as an absorbing
form of recreation from my other work, and would at
the same time, by making my knowledge exact, render
me more useful as a speaker on behalf of the causes to
which my life was given.

At the opening of the new year (1879) ^ ^^* ^^^
the first time a man to whom I subsequently owed
much in this department of work — Edward B, Aveling,
a D.Sc. of London University, and a marvellously able
teacher of scientific subjects, the very ablest, in fact,
that I have ever met. Clear and accurate in his
knowledge, with a singular gift for lucid exposition,
enthusiastic in his love of science, and taking vivid
pleasure in imparting his knowledge to others, he
was an ideal teacher. This young man, in January,
1879, began writing under initials for the National
Reformer, and in February I became his pupil, with

AT WAR ALL ROUND. 247

the view of matriculating in June at the London
University, an object which was duly accomplished.
And here let me say to any one in mental trouble,
that they might find an immense relief in taking up
some intellectual recreation of this kind ; during that
spring, in addition to my ordinary work of writing,
lecturing, and editing — and the lecturing meant travel-
ling from one end of England to the other — I trans-
lated a fair-sized French volume, and had the wear-
and-tear of pleading my case for the custody of my
daughter in the Court of Appeal, as well as the case
before the Master of the Rolls ; and I found it the very
greatest relief to turn to algebra, geometry, and physics,
and forget the harassing legal struggles in wrestling
with formulae and problems. The full access I gained
to my children marked a step in the long battle of
Freethinkers against disabilities, for, as noted in the
National Reformer by Mr. Bradlaugh, it was "won
with a pleading unequalled in any case on record for
the boldness of its affirmation of Freethought," a
pleading of which he generously said that it deserved
well of the party as "the most powerful pleading
for freedom of opinion to which it has ever been
our good fortune to listen."

In the London Daily News some powerful letters of
protest appeared, one from Lord Harberton, in which
he declared that "the Inquisition acted on no other
principle " than that applied to me ; and a second from
Mr. Band, in which he sarcastically observed that
" this Christian community has for some time had the
pleasure of seeing her Majesty's courts repeatedly

248 ANNIE BESANT.

springing engines of torture upon a young mother
— a clergyman's wife who dared to disagree with his
creed — and her evident anguish, her long and ex-
pensive struggles to save her child, have proved that
so far as heretical mothers are concerned modern
defenders of the faith need not envy the past those
persuasive instruments which so long secured the unity
of the Church. In making Mrs. Besant an example,
the Master of the Rolls and Lord Justice James have
been careful not to allow any of the effect to be
lost by confusion of the main point — the intellectual
heresy — with side questions. There was a Malthusian
matter in the case, but the judges were very clear in
stating that without any reference whatever to that,
they would simply, on the ground of Mrs. Besant 's
* religious, or anti-religious, opinions/ take her child
from her." The great provincial papers took a similar
tone, the Manchester Examiner going so far as to say of
the ruling of the judges : " We do not say they have
done so wrongly. We only say that the effect of their
judgment is cruel, and it shows that the holding of
unpopular opinions is, in the eye of the law, an offence
which, despite all we had thought to the contrary, may
be visited with the severest punishment a woman and a
mother can be possibly called on to bear." The out-
come of all this long struggle and of another case
of sore injustice — in which Mrs. Agar-Ellis, a Roman
Catholic, was separated from her children by a judicial
decision obtained against her by her husband, a Pro-
testant— was a change in the law which had vested
all power over the children in the hands of the father.

AT WAR ALL ROUND. 249

and from thenceforth the rights of the married mother
were recognised to a limited extent. A small side-fight
was with the National Sunday League, the president
of which, Lord Thurlow, strongly objected to me
as one of the vice-presidents. Mr. P. A. Taylor
and others at once resigned their offices, and, on
the calling of a general meeting. Lord Thurlow was
rejected as president. Mr. P. A. Taylor was requested
to assume the presidency, and the vice-presidents who
had resigned were, with myself, re-elected. Little
battles of this sort were a running accompaniment
of graver struggles during all these battling years.

And through all the struggles the organised strength
of the Freethought party grew, 650 new members
being enrolled in the National Secular Society in the
year 1878-79, and in July, 1879, ^^^ public adhesion
of Dr. Edward B. Aveling brought into the ranks
a pen of rare force and power, and gave a strong
impulse to the educational side of our movement.
I presided for him at his first lecture at the Hall
of Science on August 10, 1879, ^^^ ^^ soon paid
the penalty of his boldness, finding himself, a few
months later, dismissed fi-om the Chair of Comparative
Anatomy at the London Hospital, though the Board
admitted that all his duties were discharged with punc-
tuality and ability. One of the first results of his
adhesion was the establishment of two classes under
the Science and Art Department at South Kensington,
and these grew year after year, attended by numbers of
young men and women, till in 1883 we had thirteen
classes in full swing, as well as Latin, and London

250 ANNIE BESANT.

University Matriculation classes ; all these were taught
by Dr. Aveling and pupils that he had trained. I
took advanced certificates, one in honours, and so
became qualified as a science teacher in eight different
sciences, and Alice and Hypatia Bradlaugh followed
a similar course, so that winter after winter we kept
these classes going from September to the following
May, from 1879 "^^'^^ the year 1888. In addition
to these Miss Bradlaugh carried on a choral union.

Personally I found that this study and teaching
together with attendance at classes held for teachers
at South Kensington, the study for passing the First
B.Sc. and Prel. Sc. Examinations at London Uni-
versity, and the study for the B.Sc. degree at London,
at which I failed in practical chemistry three times —
a thing that puzzled me not a little at the time, as I
had passed a far more difficult practical chemical exami-
nation for teachers at South Kensington — all this gave
me a knowledge of science that has stood me in good
stead in my public work. But even here theological
and social hatred pursued me.

When Miss Bradlaugh and myself applied for
permission to attend the botany class at University
College, we were refused, I for my sins, and she
only for being her father's daughter ; when I had
qualified as teacher, I stood back from claiming
recognition from the Department for a year in order
not to prejudice the claims of Mr. Bradlaugh's
daughters, and later, when I had been recognised.
Sir Henry Tyler in the House of Commons attacked
the Education Department for accepting me, and

AT WAR ALL ROUND. 251

actually tried to prevent the Government grant being
paid to the Hall of Science Schools because Dr.
Aveling, the Misses Bradlaugh, and myself were
unbelievers in Christianity. When I asked permission
to go to the Botanical Gardens in Regent's Park the
curator refused it, on the ground that his daughters
studied there. On every side repulse and insult, hard
to struggle against, bitter to bear. It was against
difficulties of this kind on every side that we had
to make our way, handicapped in every effort by our
heresy. Let our work be as good as it might — and
our Science School was exceptionally successful — the
subtle fragrance of heresy was everywhere distinguish-
able, and when Mr. Bradlaugh and myself are blamed
for bitterness in our anti-Christian advocacy, this
constant gnawing annoyance and petty persecution
should be taken into account. For him it was
especially trying, for he saw his daughters — girls of
ability and of high character, whose only crime was
that they were his — insulted, sneered at, slandered,
continually put at a disadvantage, because they were
his children and loved and honoured him beyond all
others.

It was in October, 1879, ^^^^ ^ ^^^^ ^^^ Herbert
Burrows, though I did not become intimately ac-
quainted with him till the Socialist troubles of the
autumn of 1887 drew us into a common stream of
work. He came as a delegate from the Tower
Hamlets Radical Association to a preliminary con-
ference, called by Mr. Bradlaugh, at the Hall of
Science, on October nth, to consider the advisability

252 ANNIE BESANT.

of holding a great London Convention on Land Law
Reform, to be attended by delegates from all parts
of the kingdom. He was appointed on the Executive
Committee with Mr. Bradlaugh, Mr. Mottershead,
Mr. Nieass, and others. The Convention was success-
fully held, and an advanced platform of Land Law
Reform adopted, used later by Mr. Bradlaugh as a
basis for some of the proposals he laid before Parlia-
ment.

CHAPTER XI.

MR. BRADLAUGh's STRUGGLE.

AND now dawned the year 1880, the memorable
year in which commenced Mr. Bradlaugh's long
Parliamentary battle. After a long and bitter struggle
he was elected, with Mr. Labouchere, as member for
Northampton, at the general election, and so the
prize so long fought for was won. Shall I ever forget
that election day, April 2, 1880.^ How at four
o'clock Mr. Bradlaugh came into the room at the
"George," where his daughters and I were sitting,
flung himself into a chair with, "There's nothing
more to do ; our last man is polled." Then the
waiting for the declaration through the long, weary
hours of suspense, till as the time drew near we knelt
by the window listening — listening to the hoarse
murmur of the crowd, knowing that presently there
would be a roar of triumph or a howl of anger when
the numbers were read out from the steps of the
Town Hall. And now silence sank, and we knew
the moment had come, and we held our breath, and
then — a roar, a wild roar of joy and exultation, cheer
after cheer, ringing, throbbing, pealing, and then the
mighty surge of the crowd bringing him back, their

aS3

254 ANNIE BESANT.

member at last, waving hats, handkerchiefs, a very
madness of tumultuous delight, and the shrill strains
of " Bradlaugh for Northampton ! " with a ring of
triumph in them they had never had before. And
he, very grave, somewhat shaken by the outpour of
love and exultation, very silent, feeling the weight
of new responsibility more than the gladness of
victory. And then the next morning, as he left the
town, the mass of men and women, one sea of heads
from hotel to station, every window crowded, his
colours waving everywhere, men fighting to get near
him, to touch him, women sobbing, the cries, " Our
Charlie, our Charlie ; we've got you and we'll keep
you." How they loved him, how they joyed in the
triumph won after twelve years of strife. Ah me !
we thought the struggle over, and it was only begin-
ning ; we thought our hero victorious, and a fiercer,
crueller fight lay in front. True, he was to win that
fight, but his life was to be the price of the winning ;
victory for him was to be final, complete, but the
laurel-wreath was to fall upon a grave.

The outburst of anger from the more bigoted of
the Christian community was as savage as the outburst
of delight had been exultant, but we recked little of it.
Was he not member, duly elected, without possibility
of assailment in his legal right .'' Parliament was to
meet on April 29th, the swearing-in beginning on the
following day, and Mr. Bradlaugh had taken counsel
with some other Freethinking members as to the right
of Freethinkers to affirm. He held that under the
Act 2.9 and 30 Vict. c. 19, and the Evidence Amend-

/ '. .. ; /. i ". V^rn^n Street, N jitham{'ton.

CHARLES nRADLAlGH AND HEXRY LAIO^-CIIERE.

MR. BRADLAUGH'S STRUGGLE. 255

ment Acts 1869 and 1870, the right to substitute
affirmation for oath was clear ; he was willing to take
the oath as a necessary form if obligatory, but,
believing it to be optional, he preferred affirmation.
On May 3rd he presented himself and, according to
the evidence of Sir Erskine May, the Clerk of the
House, given before the second Select Committee on
his case, he " came to the table and delivered the
following statement in writing to the Clerk : ' To the
Right Honourable the Speaker of the House of Com-
mons. I, the undersigned, Charles Bradlaugh, beg
respectfully to claim to be allowed to affirm, as a person
for the time being by law permitted to make a solemn
affirmation or declaration, instead of taking an oath.
(Signed) Charles Bradlaugh.' And being asked by
the Clerk upon what grounds he claimed to make an
affirmation, he answered : * By virtue of the Evidence
Amendment Acts, 1869 and 1870.' Whereupon the
Clerk reported to Mr. Speaker " the claim, and Mr.
Speaker told Mr. Bradlaugh that he might address the
House on the matter. " Mr. Bradlaugh's observations
were very short. He repeated that he relied upon the
Evidence Further Amendment Act, 1869, and the
Evidence Amendment Act, 1870, adding: *I have
repeatedly, for nine years past, made an affirmation
in the highest courts of jurisdiction in this realm.
I am ready to make such a declaration or affirmation.'
Substantially those were the words which he addressed
to the Speaker." This was the simple, quiet, and
dignified scene which took place in the House. Mr.
Bradlaugh was directed to withdraw, and he withdrew,

256 ANNIE BESANT.

and, after debate, a Select Committee was appointed
to consider whether he could make affirmation ; that
Committee decided against the claim, and gave in
its report on May 20th. On the following day Mr.
Bradlaugh presented himself at the table of the House
to take the oath in the form prescribed by the law, and
on the objection of Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, who
submitted a motion that he should not be allowed to
take the oath, another Committee was appointed.

Before this Committee Mr. Bradlaugh stated his case,
and pointed out that the legal obligation lay on him
to take the oath, adding : " Any form that I went
through, any oath that I took, I should regard as
binding upon my conscience in the fullest degree. I
would go through no form, I would take no oath,
unless I meant it to be so binding." He wrote in the
^ame sense to the TimeSy saying that he should regard
himself " as bound, not by the letter of its words, but
by the spirit which the affirmation would have con-
veyed, had I been permitted to use it." The Com-
mittee reported against him, and on June 23rd he was
heard at the Bar of the House, and made a speech so
self-restrained, so noble, so dignified, that the House,
in defiance of all its own rules, broke out over and over
again into applause. In the debate that preceded his
speech, members had lost sight of the ordinary rules of
decency, and had used expressions against myself wholly
gratuitous in such a quarrel ; the grave rebuke to him
who " was wanting in chivalry, because, while I can
answer for myself and am able to answer for myself,
nothing justified the introduction of any other name

MR. BRADLAUGH'S STRUGGLE. 257

beside my own to make prejudice against me," brought
irrepressible cheers. His appeal was wholly to the law.
" I have not yet used — I trust no passion may tempt
me into using — any words that would seem to savour
of even a desire to enter into conflict with this House.
I have always taught, preached, and believed the
supremacy of Parliament, and it is not because for a
moment the judgment of one Chamber of Parliament
should be hostile to me that I am going to deny the
ideas I have always held ; but I submit that one
Chamber of Parliament — even its grandest Chamber, as
I have always held this to be — had no right to override
the law. The law gives me the right to sign that roll,
to take and subscribe the oath, and to take my seat
there [with a gesture towards the benches]. I admit
that the moment I am in the House, without any
reason but your own good will, you can send me
away. That is your right. You have full control over
your members. But you cannot send me away until I
have been heard in my place, not a suppliant as I am
now, but with the rightful audience that each member
has always had. ... I am ready to admit, if you
please, for the sake of argument, that every opinion I
hold is wrong and deserves punishment. Let the law
punish it. If you say the law cannot, then you admit
that you have no right, and I appeal to public opinion
against the iniquity of a decision which overrides the
law and denies me justice. I beg your pardon, sir, and
that of the House too, if in this warmth there seems
to lack respect for its dignity. And as I shall have,
if your decision be against me, to come to that table

17

258 ANNIE BESANT.

when your decision is given, I beg you, before the step
is taken in which we may both lose our dignity — mine
is not much, but yours is that of the Commons ot
England — I beg you, before the gauntlet is fatally
thrown, I beg you, not in any sort of menace, not in
any sort of boast, but as one man against six hundred,
to give me that justice which on the other side of this
hall the judges would give me, were I pleading there
before them."

But no eloquence, no plea for justice, could stay the
tide of Tory and religious bigotry, and the House
voted that he should not be allowed to take the oath.
Summoned to the table to hear the decision communi-
cated by the Speaker, he answered that decision with
the words firmly spoken : " I respectfully refuse to
obey the order of the House, because that order was
against the law." The Speaker appealed to the House
for direction, and on a division — during which the
Speaker and Charles Bradlaugh were left together in
the chamber — the House ordered the enforcement of
Mr. Bradlaugh's withdrawal. Once more the order is
given, once more the refusal made, and then the
Serjeant-at-Arms was bidden to remove him. Strange
was the scene as little Captain Gosset walked up to
the member of Herculean proportions, and men
wondered how the order would be enforced ; but
Charles Bradlaugh was not the man to make a vulgar
brawl, and the light touch on his shoulder was to him
the touch of an authority he admitted and to which he
bowed. So he gravely accompanied his small captor,
and was lodged in the Clock Tower of the House as

MR. BRADLAUGH'S STRUGGLE. 259

prisoner until the House should further consider what
to do with him — the most awkward prisoner it had
ever had, in that in his person it was imprisoning the
law.

In a special issue of the National Reformer^ giving
an account of the Committee's work and of Mr.
Bradlaugh's committal to the Clock Tower, I find the
following from my own pen : "The Tory party,
beaten at the polls by the nation, has thus, for the
moment, triumphed in the House of Commons. The
man chosen by the Radicals of Northampton has
been committed to prison on the motion of the Tory
ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, simply because he
desires to discharge the duty laid upon him by his
constituency and by the law of the land. As this
paper goes to press, I go to Westminster to receive
from him his directions as to the conduct of the
struggle with the nation into which the House of
Commons has so recklessly plunged." I found him
busily writing, prepared for all events, ready for a long
imprisonment. On the following day a leaflet from
my pen, " Law Makers and Law Breakers," appealed
to the people ; after reciting what had happened, it
concluded : *' Let the people speak. Gladstone and
Bright are for Liberty, and the help denied them
within the House must come to them from without.
No time must be lost. While we remain idle, a re-
presentative of the people is illegally held in prison.
Northampton is insulted, and in this great constituency
every constituency is threatened. On freedom of
election depends our liberty ; on freedom of conscience

26o ANNIE BESANT.

depends our progress. Tory squires and lordlings have
defied the people and measured their strength against
the masses. Let the masses speak." But there was no
need to make appeals, for the outrage itself caused so
swiftly a growl of anger that on the very next day the
prisoner was set free, and there came protest upon
protest against the high-handed action of the House.
In Westminster Hall 4,000 people gathered to cheer
Mr. Bradlaugh when he came to the House on the day
after his liberation. In less than a week 200 meetings
had thundered out their protest. Liberal associations,
clubs, societies, sent up messages of anger and of
demand for justice. In Trafalgar Square there gathered
— so said the papers — the largest crowd ever seen there,
and on the Thursday following — the meeting was held
on Monday — the House of Commons rescinded its
resolution, refusing to allow Mr. Bradlaugh to affirm,
and admitted him on Friday, July 2nd, to take his seat
after affirmation. ** At last the bitter struggle is over,"
I wrote, " and law and right have triumphed. The
House of Commons has, by rescinding the resolu-
tion passed by Tories and Ultramontanes, re-established
its good name in the eyes of the world. The triumph
is not one of Freethought over Christianity, nor is it
over the House of Commons ; it is the triumph of
law, brought about by good men — of all shades of
opinion, but of one faith in justice — over Tory con-
tempt of law and Ultramontane bigotry. It is the
reassertion of civil and religious liberty under the most
difficult circumstances, the declaration that the House
of Commons is the creation of the people, and not a

MR. BRADLAUGH'S STRUGGLE. 261

club of the aristocracy with the right of blackballing in
its own hands."

The battle between Charles Bradlaugh and his per-
secutors was now transferred to the law courts. As
soon as he had taken his seat he was served with a writ
for having voted without having taken the oath, and
this began the wearisome proceedings by which his
defeated enemies boasted that they would make him
bankrupt, and so vacate the seat he had so hardly
gained. Rich men like Mr. Newdegate sued him,
putting forward a man of straw as nominal plaintiff;
for many a weary month Mr. Bradlaugh kept all his
enemies at bay, fighting each case himself; defeated
time after time, he fought on, finally carrying the cases
to the House of Lords, and there winning them
triumphantly. But they were won at such heavy cost
of physical strength and of money, that they under-
mined his strength and burdened him heavily with
debt. For all this time he had not only to fight in the
law courts and to attend scrupulously to his Parlia-
mentary duties, but he had to earn his living by
lecturing and writing, so that his nights away from the
House were spent in travelling and his days in incessant
labour. Many of his defeated foes turned their
weapons against me, hoping thus to give him pain ;
thus Admiral Sir John Hay, at Wigton, used language
of me so coarse that the Scotsman and Glasgow Herald
refused to print it, and the editor of the Scotsman de-
scribed it as *' language so coarse that it could have
hardly dropped from a yahoo."

August 25 th found me at Brussels, whither I went.

262 ANNIE BESANT.

with Miss Hypatia Bradlaugh, to represent the English
Freethinkers at the International Freethought Con-
ference. It was an interesting gathering, attended by
men of world-wide reputation, including Dr. Ludwig
Biichner, a man of noble and kindly nature. An Inter-
national Federation of Freethinkers was there founded,
which did something towards bringing together the
Freethinkers of different countries, and held interesting
congresses in the following years in London and Amster-
dam ; but beyond these meetings it did little, and lacked
energy and vitality. In truth, the Freethought party
in each country had so much to do in holding its own
that little time and thought could be given to inter-
national organisation. For myself, my introduction to
Dr. Biichner, led to much interesting correspondence,
and I translated, with his approval, his " Mind in
Animals," and the enlarged fourteenth edition of " Force
and Matter," as well as one or two pamphlets. This
autumn of 1880 found the so-called Liberal Govern-
ment in full tilt against the Irish leaders, and I worked
hard to raise English feeling in defence of Irish freedom
even against attack by one so much honoured as was
Mr. Gladstone. It was uphill work, for harsh language
had been used against England and all things English,
but I showed by definite figures — all up and down
England — that life and property were far safer in
Ireland than in England, that Ireland was singularly
free from crime save in agrarian disputes, and I argued
that these would disappear if the law should step in
between landlord and tenant, and by stopping the
crimes of rack-renting and most brutal eviction, put

MR. BRADLAUGH'S STRUGGLE. 263

an end to the horrible retaliations that were born of
despair and revenge. A striking point on these evic-
tions I quoted from Mr. T. P. O'Connor, who, using
Mr. Gladstone's words that a sentence of eviction was a
sentence of starvation, told of 15,000 processes of evic-
tion issued in that one year. The autumn's work was
varied by the teaching of science classes, a debate with
a clergyman of the Church of England, and an operation
which kept me in bed for three weeks, but which, on
the other hand, was useful, for I learned to write while
lying on my back, and accomplished in this fashion a
good part of the translation of " Mind in Animals."

And here let me point a moral about hard work.
Hard work kills no one. I find a note in the National
Reformer in 1880 from the pen of Mr. Bradlaugh : "It
is, we fear, useless to add that, in the judgment of her
best friends, Mrs. Besant has worked far too hard during
the last two years." This is 1893, and the thirteen
years' interval has been full of incessant work, and I am
working harder than ever now, and in splendid health.
Looking over the National Reformer for all these years,
it seems to me that it did really fine educational work ;
Mr. Bradlaugh's strenuous utterances on political and
theological matters ; Dr. Aveling's luminous and beau-
tiful scientific teachings ; and to my share fell much of
the educative work on questions of political and national
morality in our dealings with weaker nations. We put
all our hearts into our work, and the influence exercised
was distinctly in favour of pure living and high think-
ing.

In the spring of 1881 the Court of Appeal decided

264 ANNIE BESANT.

against Mr. Bradlaugh's right to affirm as Member of
Parliament, and his seat was declared vacant, but he
was at once returned again by the borough of North-
ampton, despite the virulence of slander directed against
him, so that he rightly described the election as " the
most bitter I have ever fought." His work in the
House had won him golden opinions in the country,
and he was already recognised as a power there ; so
Tory fear was added to bigoted hatred, and the efforts
to keep him out of the House were increased.

He was introduced to the House as a new member
to take his seat by Mr. Labouchere and Mr. Burt, but
Sir Stafford Northcote intervened, and after a lengthy
debate, which included a speech from Mr. Bradlaugh at
the Bar, a majority of thirty- three refused to allow him
to take the oath. After a prolonged scene, during
which Mr. Bradlaugh declined to withdraw and the
House hesitated to use force, the House adjourned,
and finally the Government promised to bring in an
Affirmation Bill, and Mr. Bradlaugh promised, with
the consent of his constituents, to await the decision of
the House on this Bill. Meantime, a League for the
Defence of Constitutional Rights was formed, and the
agitation in the country grew : wherever Mr. Bradlaugh
went to speak vast crowds awaited him, and he travelled
from one end of the country to the other, the people
answering his appeal for justice with no uncertain voice.
On July 2nd, in consequence of Tory obstruction, Mr.
Gladstone wrote to Mr. Bradlaugh that the Government
were going to drop the Affirmation Bill, and Mr. Brad-
laugh thereupon determined to present himself once

MR. BRADLAUGH'S STRUGGLE. 265

more in the House, and fixed on August 3rd as the date
of such action, so that the Irish Land Bill might get
through the House ere any delay in business was caused
by him. The House was then closely guarded with
police ; the great gates were closed, reserves of police
were packed in the law courts, and all through July
this state of siege continued. On August 2nd there was
a large meeting in Trafalgar Square, at which delegates
were present from all parts of England, and fi*om as far
north as Edinburgh, and on Wednesday, August 3rd, Mr.
Bradlaugh went down to the House. His last words
to me were : " The people know you better than they
know any one, save myself; whatever happens, mind,
whatever happens, let them do no violence ; I trust to
you to keep them quiet." He went to the House
entrance with Dr. Aveling, and into the House alone.
His daughters and I went together, and with some
hundreds of others carrying petitions — ten only with
each petition, and the ten rigidly counted and allowed
to pass through the gate, sufficiently opened to let one
through at a time — reached Westminster Hall, where
we waited on the steps leading to the passage of the
lobby.

An inspector ordered us off. I gently intimated that
we were within our rights. Dramatic order : " Four
officers this way." Up they marched and looked at us,
and we looked at them. " I think you had better con-
sult Inspector Denning before you use violence," I
remarked placidly. They thought they had, and in a
few moments up came the inspector, and seeing that
we were standing in a place where we had a right to be.

266 • ANNIE BESANT.

and were doing no harm, he rebuked his over-zealous
subordinates, and they retired and left us in peace. A
man of much tact and discretion was Inspector Denning.
Indeed, all through this, the House of Commons police
behaved admirably well. Even in the attack they were
ordered to make on Mr. Bradlaugh, the police used as
little violence as they could. It was Mr. Erskine, the
Deputy Serjeant-at-Arms, and his ushers, who showed
the brutality ; as Dr. Aveling wrote at the time : " The
police disliked their work, and, as brave men, had a
sympathy for a brave man. Their orders they obeyed
rigidly. This done, they were kindness itself." Gradu-
ally the crowd of petitioners grew and grew ; angry
murmurs were heard, for no news came from the House,
and they loved " Charlie," and were mostly north country
men, sturdy and independent. They thought they had
a right to go into the lobby, and suddenly, with the
impulse that will sway a crowd to a single action there
was a roar, " Petition, petition, justice, justice," and
they surged up the steps, charging at the policemen
who held the door. Flashed into my mind my chief's
charge, his words, " I trust to you to keep them quiet,"
and as the police sprang forward to meet the crowd I
threw myself between them, with all the advantage of
the position of the top of the steps that I had chosen,
so that every man in the charging crowd saw me, and
as they checked themselves in surprise I bade them stop
for his sake, and keep for him the peace which he had
bade us should not be broken. I heard afterwards that
as I sprang forward the police laughed — they must have
thought me a fool to fece the rush of the charging men ;

MR. BRADLAUGH'S STRUGGLE. 267

but I knew his friends would never trample me down,
and as the crowd stopped the laugh died out, and they
drew back and left me my own way.

Sullenly the men drew back, mastering themselves
with effort, reining in their wrath, still for his sake.
Ah ! had I known what was going on inside, would I
have kept his trust unbroken ! and, as many a man said
to me afterwards in northern towns, " Oh ! if you had
let us go we would have carried him into the House up
to the Speaker's chair." We heard a crash inside, and
listened, and there was sound of breaking glass and
splintering wood, and in a few minutes a messenger
came to me : " He is in Palace Yard." And we went
thither and saw him standing, still and white, face set
like marble, coat torn, motionless, as though carved in
stone, facing the members' door. Now we know the
whole shameful story : how as that one man stood
alone, on his way to claim his right, alone so that he
could do no violence, fourteen men, said the Central
News, police and ushers, flung themselves upon him,
pushed and pulled him down the stairs, smashing in
their violence the glass and wood of the passage door ;
how he struck no blow, but used only his great strength
in passive resistance — " Of all I have ever seen, I never
saw one man struggle with ten like that," said one of
the chiefs, angrily disdainful of the wrong he was
forced to do — till they flung him out into Palace Yard.
An eye-witness thus reported the scene in the Press :
" The strong, broad, heavy, powerful frame of Mr.
Bradlaugh was hard to move, with its every nerve and
muscle strained to resist the coercion. Bending and

268 ANNIE BESANT.

straining against the overpowering numbers, he held
every inch with surprising tenacity, and only sur-
rendered it after almost superhuman exertions to retain
it. The sight — little of it as was seen from the outside
— soon became sickening. The overborne man appeared
almost at his last gasp. The face, in spite of the
warmth of the struggle, had an ominous pallor. The
limbs barely sustained him. . . . The Trafalgar Square
phrase that this man might be broken but not bent
occurred to minds apprehensive at the present appear-
ance of him."

They flung him out, and swift, short words were
there interchanged. '* I nearly did wrong at the door,"
he said afterwards, " I was very angry. I said to
Inspector Denning, * I shall come again with force
enough to overcome it.' He said, ' When .? * I said,
* Within a minute if I raise my hand.' " He stood in
Palace Yard, and there outside the gate was a vast sea
of heads, the men who had journeyed from all parts of
England for love of him, and in defence of the great
right he represented of a constituency to send to Parlia-
ment the man of its choice. Ah ! he was never greater
than in that moment of outrage and of triumphant
wrong ; with all the passion of a proud man surging
within him, insulted by physical violence, injured by
the cruel wrenching of all his muscles — so that for
weeks his arms had to be swathed in bandages — he was
never greater than when he conquered his own wrath,
crushed down his own longing for battle, stirred to
flame by the bodily struggle, and the bodily injury, and
with thousands waiting within sound of his voice, long-

MR. BRADLAUGH'S STRUGGLE. 269

ing to leap to his side, he gave the word to tell them
to meet him that evening away from the scene of con-
flict, and meanwhile to disperse quietly, " no riot, no
disorder." But how he suffered mentally no words of
mine may tell, and none can understand how it wrung
his heart who does not know how he reverenced the
great Parliament of England, how he honoured law,
how he believed in justice being done; it was the
breaking down of his national ideals, of his pride in
his country, of his belief that faith would be kept with
a foe by English gentlemen, who with all their faults,
he thought, held honour and chivalry dear. " No man
will sleep in gaol for me to-night," he said to me that
day ; " no woman can blame me for her husband killed

or wounded, but " A wave of agony swept over

his face, and from that fatal day Charles Bradlaugh was
never the same man. Some hold their ideals lightly,
but his heart-strings were twined round his ; some care
little for their country — he was an Englishman, law-
abiding, liberty-loving, to his heart's core, of the type
of the seventeenth-century patriot, holding England's
honour dear. It was the treachery that broke his
heart ; he had gone alone, believing in the honour of
his foes, ready to submit to expulsion, to imprisonment,
and it was the latter that he expected ; but he never
dreamed that, going alone amongst his foes, they would
use brutal and cowardly violence, and shame every
Parliamentary tradition by personal outrage on a duly-
elected member, outrage more worthy of a slum pot-
house than of the great Commons House, the House of
Hampden and of Vane, the House that had guarded its

270 ANNIE BESANT.

own from Royal violence, and had maintained its privi-
leges in the teeth of kings.

These stormy scenes brought about a promise of
Government aid ; Mr. Bradlaugh failed to get any
legal redress, as, indeed, he expected to fail, on the
ground that the officials of the House were covered
by the House's order, but the Government promised
to support his claim to his seat during the next session,
and thus prevented the campaign against them on which
we had resolved. I had solely on my own responsi-
bility organised a great band of people pledged to
refrain from the use of all excisable articles after a
certain date, and to withdraw all their moneys in the
Savings Bank, thus seriously crippling the financial
resources of the Government. The response from the
workers to my appeal to " Stop the supplies " was great
and touching. One man wrote that as he never drank
nor smoked he would leave off tea ; others that though
tobacco was their one luxury, they would forego it ;
and so on. Somewhat reluctantly, I asked the people
to lay aside this formidable weapon, as "we have no
right to embarrass the Government financially save
when they refuse to do the first duty of a Government
to maintain law. They have now promised to do
justice, and we must wait." Meanwhile the injuries
inflicted on Mr. Bradlaugh, rupturing the sheaths of
some of the muscles of the arm, laid him prostrate, and
various small fights went on during the temporary truce
in the great struggle. I turned up in the House two
or three times, haled thither, though not in person, by
the people who kept Mr. Bradlaugh out, and a speech

MR. BRADLAUGH'S STRUGGLE. 271

of mine became the subject of a question by Mr.
Ritchie, while Sir Henry Tyler waged war on the
science classes. Another joy was added to life by the
use of my name — which by all these struggles had
gained a marketable value — as author of pamphlets I
had never seen, and this forgery of my name by
unscrupulous people in the colonies caused me a good
deal of annoyance. In the strengthening of the con-
stitutional agitation in the country, the holding of an
International Congress of Freethinkers in London, the
studying and teaching of science, the delivering of
courses of scientific lectures in the Hall of Science, a
sharp correspondence with the Bishop of Manchester,
who had libelled Secularists, and which led to a fiery
pamphlet, " God's Views on Marriage," as retort — in
all these matters the autumn months sped rapidly away.
One incident of that autumn I record with regret. I
was misled by very partial knowledge of the nature
of the experiments performed, and by my fear that if
scientific men were forbidden to experiment on animals
with drugs they would perforce experiment with them
on the poor in hospitals, to write two articles, repub-
lished as a pamphlet, against Sir Eardley Wilmot's Bill
for the " Total Suppression of Vivisection." I limited
my approval to highly skilled men engaged in original
investigations, and took the representations made of the
character of the experiments without sufficient care to
verify them. Hence the publication of the one thing
I ever wrote for which I feel deep regret and shame, as
against the whole trend and efforts of my life. I am
thankful to say that Dr. Anna Kingsford answered my

272 ANNIE BESANT.

articles, and I readily inserted her replies in the paper
in which mine had appeared — our National Reformer —
and she touched that question of the moral sense to
which my nature at once responded. Ultimately, I
looked carefully into the subject, found that vivisection
abroad was very different from vivisection in England,
saw that it was in very truth the fiendishly cruel thing
that its opponents alleged, and destroyed my partial
defence of even its less brutal form.

1882 saw no cessation of the struggles in which Mr.
Bradlaugh and those who stood by him were involved.
On February 7th he was heard for the third time at the
Bar of the House of Commons, and closed his speech
with an offer that, accepted, would have closed the
contest. " I am ready to stand aside, say for four or
five weeks, without coming to that table, if the House
within that time, or within such time as its great needs
might demand, would discuss whether an Affirmation
Bill should pass or not. I want to obey the law, and
I tell you how I might meet the House still further, if
the House will pardon me for seeming to advise it.
Hon. members have said that would be a Bradlaugh
Relief Bill. Bradlaugh is more proud than you are.
Let the Bill pass without applying to elections that
have taken place previously, and I will undertake not
to claim my seat, and when the Bill has passed I will
apply for the Chiltern Hundreds. I have no fear. If
I am not fit for my constituents, they shall dismiss me,
but you never shall. The grave alone shall make me
yield." But the House would do nothing. He had
asked for 100,000 signatures in favour of his consti-

MR. BRADLAUGH'S STRUGGLE. 273

tutional right, and on February 8th, 9th, and loth
1,008 petitions, bearing 241,970 signatures, were pre-
sented ; the House treated them with contemptuous
indifference. The House refused to declare his seat
vacant, and also refused to allow him to fill it, thus
half-disfranchising Northampton, while closing every
avenue to legal redress. Mr. Labouchere — who did all
a loyal colleague could do to assist his brother member
— brought in an Affirmation Bill ; it was blocked.
Mr. Gladstone, appealed to to support the law de-
clared by his own Attorney-General, refused to do
anything. An impasse was created, and all the enemies
of freedom rejoiced. Out of this position of what the
Globe called " quiet omnipotence " the House was
shaken by an audacious defiance, for on February 21st
the member it was trying to hold at arm's length took
the oath in its startled face, went to his seat, and —
waited events. The House then expelled him — and,
indeed, it could scarcely do anything else after such
defiance — and Mr. Labouchere moved for a new writ,
declaring that Northampton was ready, its " candi-
date was Charles Bradlaugh, expelled this House."
Northampton, ever steadfast, returned him for the third
time — the vote in his favour showing an increase of
359 over the second bye-election — and the triumph
was received in all the great towns of England with
wild enthusiasm. By the small majority of fifteen in a
House of 599 members — and this due to the vacillation
of the Government — he was again refused the right to
take his seat. But now the whole Liberal Press took up
his quarrel ; the oath question became a test question

18

274 ANNIE BESANT .

for every candidate for Parliament, and the Government
was warned that it was alienating its best friends.
The Pall Mall Gazette voiced the general feeling.
" What is the evidence that an Oaths Bill would injure
the Government in the country ^ Of one thing we
may be sure, that if they shirk the Bill they will do no
good to themselves at the elections. Nobody doubts
that it will be made a test question, and any Liberal
who declines to vote for such a Bill will certainly lose
the support of the Northampton sort of Radicalism in
every constituency. The Liberal Press throughout the
country is absolutely unanimous. The political Non-
conformists are for it. The local clubs are for it. All
that is wanted is that the Government should pick up
a little more moral courage, and recognise that even in
practice honesty is the best policy." The Government
did not think so, and they paid the penalty, for one of
the causes that led to their defeat at the polls was the
disgust felt at their vacillation and cowardice in regard
to the rights of constituencies. Not untruly did I
write, in May, 1882, that Charles Bradlaugh was a man
" who by the infliction of a great wrong had become
the incarnation of a great principle " ; for the agita-
tion in the country grew and grew, until, returned
again to Parliament at the General Election, he took
the oath and his seat, brought in and carried an Oaths
Bill, not only giving Members of Parliament the
right to affirm, but making Freethinkers competent as
jurymen, and relieving witnesses from the insult hitherto
put upon those who objected to swearing ; he thus
ended an unprecedented struggle by a complete victory,

MR. BRADLAUGH'S STRUGGLE. 275

weaving his name for ever into the constitutional
history of his country.

In the House of Lords, Lord Redesdale brought in
a Bill disqualifying Atheists from sitting in Parliament,
but in face of the feeling aroused in the country, the
Lords, with many pathetic expressions of regret, declined
to pass it. But, meanwhile, Sir Henry Tyler in the
Commons was calling out for prosecutions for blas-
phemy to be brought against Mr. Bradlaugh and his
friends, while he carried on his crusade against Mr.
Bradlaugh's daughters, Dr. Aveling, and myself, as
science teachers. I summed up the position in the
spring of 1882 in the following somewhat strong
language : " This short-lived * Parliamentary Declara-
tion Bill ' is but one of the many clouds which presage
a storm of prosecution. The reiterated attempts in the
House of Commons to force the Government into
prosecuting heretics for blasphemy ; the petty and
vicious attacks on the science classes at the Hall ; the
odious and wicked efforts of Mr. Newdegate to drive
Mr. Bradlaugh into the Bankruptcy Court ; all these are
but signs that the heterogeneous army of pious and
bigoted Christians are gathering together their forces
for a furious attack on those who have silenced them
in argument, but whom they hope to conquer by main
force, by sheer brutality. Let them come. Free-
thinkers were never so strong, never so united, never so
well organised as they are to-day. Strong in the good-
ness of our cause, in our faith in the ultimate triumph
of Truth, in our willingness to give up all save fidelity
to the sacred cause of liberty of human thought and

2^6 ANNIE BESANT.

human speech, we await gravely and fearlessly the
successors of the men who burned Bruno, who im-
prisoned Galileo, who tortured Vanini — the men who
have in their hands the blood-red cross of Jesus of
Nazareth, and in their hearts the love of God and the
hate of man."

CHAPTER XII.

STILL FIGHTING.

ALL this hot fighting on the religious field did not
render me blind to the misery of the Irish land
so dear to my heart, writhing in the cruel grip of Mr.
Forster's Coercion Act. An article " Coercion in
Ireland and its Results," exposing the wrongs done
under the Act, was reprinted as a pamphlet and had a
wide circulation.

I pleaded against eviction — 7,020 persons had been
evicted during the quarter ending in March — for the
trial of those imprisoned on suspicion, for indemnity for
those who before the Land Act had striven against
wrongs the Land Act had been carried to prevent, and I
urged that " no chance is given for the healing measures
to cure the sore of Irish disaffection until not only are
the prisoners in Ireland set at liberty, but until the
brave, unfortunate Michael Davitt stands once more a
free man on Irish soil." At last the Government re-
considered its policy and resolved on juster dealings ;
it sent Lord Frederick Cavendish over to Ireland,
carrying with him the release of the " suspects," and

scarcelv had he landed ere the knife of assassination

977

278 ANNIE BESANT.

struck him — a foul and cowardly murder of an inno-
cent messenger of peace. I was at Blackburn, to lecture
on "The Irish Question," and as I was walking towards
the platform, my heart full of joy for the dawning
hope of peace, a telegram announcing the assassination
was placed in my hands. Never shall I forget the
shock, the incredulous horror, the wave of despair.
" It is not only two men they have killed," I wrote, iL
day or two later ; " they have stabbed the new-born
hope of friendship between two countries, and have re-
opened the gulf of hatred that was just beginning to
close." Alas ! the crime succeeded in its object/and
hurried the Government into new wrong. Hastily a
new Coercion Bill was brought in, and rushed through
its stages in Parliament, and, facing the storm of public
excitement, I pleaded still, " Force no remedy," despite
the hardship of the task. " There is excessive difficulty
in dealing with the Irish difficulty at the present
moment. Tories are howling for revenge on a whole
nation as answer to the crime committed by a few ;
Whigs are swelling the outcry ; many Radicals are
swept away by the current, and feeling that * something
must be done,' they endorse the Government action,
forgetting to ask whether the * something ' proposed is
the wisest thing. A few stand firm, but they are very
few — too few to prevent the new Coercion Bill from
passing into law. But few though we be who lift up
the voice of protest against the wrong which we are
powerless to prevent, we may yet do much to make the
new Act of brief duration, by so rousing public opinion
as to bring about its early repeal. When the measure

STILL FIGHTING. 279

is understood by the public half the battle will be won ;
It is accepted at the moment from faith in the Govern-
ment ; it will be rejected when its true character is
grasped. The murders which have given birth to this
repressive measure came with a shock upon the country,
which was the more terrible from the sudden change
from gladness and hope to darkness and despair. The
new policy was welcomed so joyfully ; the messenger of
the new policy was slain ere yet the pen was dry which
had signed the orders of mercy and of liberty. Small
wonder that cry of horror should be followed by
measures of vengeance ; but the murders were the work
of a few criminals, while the measure of vengeance
strikes the whole of the Irish people. I plead against
the panic which confounds political agitation and political
redressal of wrong with crime and its punishment ; the
Government measure gags every mouth in Ireland, and
puts, as we shall see, all political effort at the mercy of
the Lord-Lieutenant, the magistracy, and the police." I
then sketched the misery of the peasants in the grip of
absentee landlords, the turning out on the roadside to
die of the mother with new-born babe at her breast,
the loss of " all thought of the sanctity of human life
when the lives of the dearest are reckoned as less worth
than the shillings of overdue rack-rental." I analysed
the new Act : " When this Act passes, trial by jury,
right of public meeting, liberty of press, sanctity of
house, will one and all be held at the will of the Lord-
Lieutenant, the irresponsible autocrat of Ireland, while
liberty of person will lie at the mercy of every con-
stable. Such is England's way of governing Ireland in

28o ANNIE BESANT.

the year 1882. And this is supposed to be a Bill for
the * repression of crime.'" Bluntly, I put the bald
truth : " The plain fact is that the murderers have
succeeded. They saw in the new policy the recon-
ciliation of England and Ireland ; they knew that
friendship would follow justice, and that the two
countries, for the first time in history, would clasp
hands. To prevent this they dug a new gulf, which
they hoped the English nation would not span ; they
sent a river of blood across the road of friendship,
and they flung two corpses to bar the newly-opened
gate of reconciliation and peace. They have suc-
ceeded."

Into this whirl of political and social strife came the
first whisper to me of the Theosophical Society, in the
shape of a statement of its principles, which conveyed,
I remarked, " no very definite idea of the requirements
for membership, beyond a dreamy, emotional, scholarly
interest in the religio-philosophic fancies of the past."
Also a report of an address by Colonel Olcott, which
led me to suppose that the society held to " some
strange theory of * apparitions ' of the dead, and to
some existence outside the physical and apart fi-om it."
These came to me from some Hindu Freethinkers,
who asked my opinion as to Secularists joining the
Theosophical Society, and Theosophists being admitted
to the National Secular Society. I replied, judging
from these reports, that " while Secularists would have
no right to refuse to enrol Theosophists, if they desired
it, among their members, there is a radical difference
between the mysticism of Theosophy and the scientific

STILL FIGHTING. 281

materialism of Secularism. The exclusive devotion to
this world implied in the profession of Secularism leaves
no room for other-worldism ; and consistent members
of our body cannot join a society which professes belief
therein." '

H. P. Blavatsky penned a brief article in the 'Theo-
sophist for August, 1882, in which she commented on
my paragraph, remarking, in her generous way, that it
must have been written " while labouring under entirely
misconceived notions about the real nature of our society.
For one so highly intellectual and keen as that re-
nowned writer to dogmatise and issue autocratic ukases,
after she has herself suffered so cruelly and unde-
servedly at the hands of blind bigotry and social pre-
judice in her lifelong struggle for freedom of thought
seems, to say the least, absurdly inconsistent." After
quoting my paragraph she went on : " Until proofs to
the contrary, we prefer to believe that the above lines
were dictated to Mrs. Besant by some crafty misrepre-
sentations from Madras, inspired by a mean personal
revenge rather than a desire to remain consistent with
the principles of * the scientific materialism of Secu-
larism.' We beg to assure the Radical editors of the
National Reformer that they were both very strangely
misled by false reports about the as Radical editors of
the Theosophist, The term ' supernaturalists ' can no
more apply to the latter than to Mrs. A. Besant and
Mr. C. Bradlaugh."

H. P Blavatsky, when she commented, as she oc-
casionally did, on the struggles going on in England,
* National Reformer^ June 18, 1882.

282 ANNIE BESANT.

took of them a singularly large-hearted • and generous
view. She referred with much admiration to Mr.
Bradlaugh's work and to his Parliamentary struggle,
and spoke warmly of the services he had rendered to
liberty. Again, in pointing out that spiritualistic
trance orations by no means transcended speeches that
made no such claim, I find her first mention of myself:
" Another lady orator, of deservedly great fame, both
for eloquence and learning — the good Mrs. Annie
Besant — without believing in controlling spirits, or for
that matter in her own spirit, yet speaks and writes
such sensible and wise things, that we might almost say
that one of her speeches or chapters contains more matter
to benefit humanity than would equip a modern trance-
speaker for an entire oratorical career." ^ I have some-
times wondered of late years whether, had I met her
then or seen any of her writings, I should have become
her pupil. I fear not ; I was still too much dazzled by
the triumphs of Western Science, too self-assertive, too
fond of combat, too much at the mercy of my own
emotions, too sensitive to praise and blame. I needed
to sound yet more deeply the depths of human misery,
to hear yet more loudly the moaning of " the great
Orphan," Humanity, to feel yet more keenly the lack
of wider knowledge and of clearer light if I were to
give effective help to man, ere I could bow my pride to
crave admittance as pupil to the School of Occultism,
ere I could put aside my prejudices and study the
Science of the Soul.

The long-continued attempts of Sir Henry Tyler

* Theosophist^ June, 1882.

STILL FIGHTING. 283

and his friends to stimulate persecutions for blasphemy
at length took practical shape, and in July, 1882, Mr.
Foote, the editor, Mr. Ramsey, the publisher, and Mr.
Whittle, the printer of the Freethinker^ were sum-
moned for blasphemy by Sir Henry Tyler himself.
An attempt was made to involve Mr. Bradlaugh in the
proceedings, and the solicitors promised to drop the
case against the editor and printer if Mr. Bradlaugh
would himself sell them some copies of the paper. But
however ready Mr. Bradlaugh had always shown him-
self to shield his subordinates by taking his sins on his
own shoulders, he saw no reason why he should assume
responsibility for a paper over which he had no control,
and which was, he thought, by its caricatures, lowering
the tone of Freethought advocacy and giving an un-
necessary handle to its foes. He therefore answered
that he would sell the solicitors any works published by
himself or with his authority, and sent them a catalogue
of the whole of such works. The object of this effort
of Sir Henry Tyler's was obvious enough, and Mr.
Bradlaugh commented : " The above letters make it
pretty clear that Sir Henry W. Tyler having failed in
his endeavour to get the science classes stopped at the
Hall of Science, having also failed in his attempt to
induce Sir W. Vernon Harcourt to prosecute myself
and Mrs. Besant as editors and publishers of this
journal, desires to make me personally and criminally
responsible for the contents of a journal I neither edit
nor publish, over which I have not a shadow of control,
and in which I have not the smallest interest. Why
does Sir H. W. Tyler so ardently desire to prosecute.

284 ANNIE BESANT.

me for blasphemy ? Is it because two convictions will
under the 9th and loth Will. III. cap. 32, render me
' for ever ' incapable of sitting in Parliament ? " The
Whitehall Review frankly put this forward as an object
to be gained, and Mr. Bradlaugh was summoned to the
Mansion House on a charge of publishing blasphemous
libels in the Freethinker ; meanwhile Sir Henry Tyler
put a notice on the Order Book to deprive " the
daughters of Mr. Charles Bradlaugh " of the grant
they had earned as science teachers, and got an order
which proved to be invalid, but which was acted on, to
inspect Mr. Bradlaugh's and my own private banking
accounts, I being no party to the case. Looking back,
I marvel at the incredible meannesses to which Sir
Henry Tyler and others stooped in defence of " re-
ligion"— Heaven save the mark ! Let me add that his
motion in the House of Commons was a complete
failure, and it was emphasised by the publication at
the same time of the successful work, both as teachers
and as students, of the "daughters of Mr. Charles
Bradlaugh," and of my being the only student in all
England who had succeeded in taking honours in
botany.

I must pause a moment to chronicle, in September,
1882, the death of Dr. Pusey, whom I had sought in the
whirl of my early religious struggles. I wrote an article
on him in the National Reformer^ and ended by laying a
tribute on his grave : *' A strong man and a good man.
Utterly out of harmony with the spirit of his own
time, looking with sternly-rebuking eyes on all the
eager research, the joyous love of nature, the earnest

STILL FIGHTING. 285

inquiry into a world doomed to be burnt up at
the coming of its Judge. An ascetic, pure in life,
stern in faith, harsh to unbelievers because sincere in
his own cruel creed, generous and tender to all who
accepted his doctrines and submitted to his Church.
He never stooped to slander those with whom he dis-
agreed. His hatred of heresy led him not to blacken
the character of heretics, nor to descend to the vulgar
abuse used by pettier priests. And therefore I, who
honour courage and sincerity wherever I find them ; I,
who do homage to steadfastness wherever I find it ; I,
Atheist, lay my small tribute of respect on the bier of
this noblest of the Anglo-Catholics, Edward Bouverie
Pusey."

As a practical answer to the numberless attacks made
on us, and as a result of the enormous increase of
circulation given to our theological and political writ-
ings by these harassing persecutions, we moved our
publishing business to 63, Fleet Street, at the end of
September, 1882, a shop facing that at which Richard
Carlile had carried on his publishing business for a
great time, and so seemed still redolent with memories
of his gallant struggles. Two of the first things sold
here were a pamphlet of mine, a strong protest against
our shamefiil Egyptian policy, and a critical volume
on *' Genesis " which Mr. Bradlaugh found time to
write in the intervals of his busy life. Here I worked
daily, save when out of London, until Mr. Brad-
laugh's death in 1891, assisted in the conduct of the
business by Mr. Bradlaugh's elder daughter — a woman
of strong character with many noble qualities, who

286 ANNIE BESANT.

died rather suddenly in December, 1888, and in
the work on the National Reformer, first by Dr.
Aveling, and then by Mr. John Robertson, its present
editor. Here, too, from 1884 onwards, worked with
me Thornton Smith, one of Mr. Bradlaugh's most
devoted disciples, who became one of the leading
speakers of the National Secular Society ; like her
well-loved chief, she was ever a good friend and a good
fighter, and to me the most loyal and loving of col-
leagues, one of the few — the very few — Freethinkers
who were large-hearted and generous enough not to
turn against me when I became a Theosophist. A
second of these — alas ! I could count them on my
fingers — was the John Robertson above mentioned, a
man of rare ability and wide culture, somewhat too
scholarly for popular propagandism of the most gene-
rally effective order, but a man who is a strength to
any movement, always on the side of noble living and
high thinking, loyal-natured as the true Scot should be,
incapable of meanness or treachery, and the most genial
and generous of fi^iends.

Among the new literary ventures that followed on
our taking the large publishing premises in Fleet Street
was a sixpenny magazine, edited by myself, and entitled
Our Corner ; its first number was dated January, 1883,
and for six years it appeared regularly, and served me
as a useful mouthpiece in my Socialist and Labour
propagandist work. Among its contributors were
Moncure D. Conway, Professor Ludwig Biichner, Yves
Guyot, Professor Ernst Haeckel, G. Bernard Shaw,
Constance Naden, Dr. Aveling, J. H. Levy, J. L.

STILL FIGHTING. 287

Joynes, Mrs. Edgren, John Robertson, and many
another, Charles Bradlaugh and I writing regularly
each month.

1883 broke stormily, fights on every hand, and a
huge constitutional agitation going on in the country,
which forced the Government into bringing in an
Affirmation Bill ; resolutions from Liberal Associa-
tions all over the land ; preparations to oppose the
re-election of disloyal members; no less than a thou-
sand delegates sent up to London by clubs, Trade
Unions, associations of every sort ; a meeting that
packed Trafalgar Square ; an uneasy crowd in West-
minster Hall ; a request from Inspector Denning that
Mr. Bradlaugh would go out to them — they feared for
his safety inside ; a word from him, " The Govern-
ment have pledged themselves to bring in an Affirma-
tion Bill at once ; " roar after roar of cheering ; a
veritable people's victory on that 15th of February,
1883. It was the answer of the country to the appeal
for justice, the rebuke of the electors to the House
that had defied them.

Scarcely was this over when a second prosecution for
blasphemy against Messrs. Foote, Ramsey, and Kemp
began, and was hurried on in the Central Criminal Court,
before Mr. Justice North, a bigot of the sternest type.
The trial ended in a disagreement of the jury, Mr.
Foote defending himself in a splendid speech. The
judge acted very harshly throughout, interrupted Mr.
Foote continuously, and even refused bail to the
defendants during the interval between the first and
second trial ; they were, therefore, confined in Newgate

288 ANNIE BESANT.

from Thursday to Monday, and we were only allowed
to see them through iron bars and lattice, as they
exercised in the prison yard between 8.30 and 9.30 a.m.
Brought up to trial again on Monday, they were con-
victed, and Mr. Foote was sentenced to a year's im-
prisonment, Mr. Ramsey to nine months, and Mr. Kemp
to three months. Mr. Foote especially behaved with
great dignity and courage in a most difficult position,
and heard his cruel sentence without wincing, and with
the calm words, " My Lord, I thank you ; it is worthy
your creed." A few of us at once stepped in, to pre-
serve to Mr. Ramsey his shop, and to Mr. Foote his
literary property ; Dr. Aveling undertook the editing
of the Freethinker and of Mr. Foote's magazine
Progress; the immediate necessities of their families
were seen to ; Mr. and Mrs. Forder took charge of the
shop, and within a few days all was in working order.
Disapproving as many of us did of the policy of the
paper, there was no time to think of that when a
blasphemy prosecution had proved successful, and we
all closed up in the support of men imprisoned for
conscience' sake. I commenced a series of articles on
" The Christian Creed ; what it is blasphemy to deny,"
showing what Christians must believe under peril of
prosecution. Everywhere a tremendous impulse was
given to the Freethought movement, as men awakened
to the knowledge that blasphemy laws were not
obsolete.

From over the sea came a word of sympathy from
the pen of H. P. Blavatsky in the 'Theosophist. '' We
prefer Mr. Foote's actual position to that of his severe

STILL FIGHTING. 289

judge. Aye, and were we in his guilty skin, we would
feel more proud, even in the poor editor's present
position, than we would under the wig of Mr. Justice
North."

In April, 1883, the long legal struggles of Mr.
Bradlaugh against Mr. Newdegate and his common
informer, that had lasted from July 2, 1880, till April
9, 1883, ended in his complete victory by the judg-
ment of the House of Lords in his favour. *' Court
after Court decided against me," he wrote ; " and Whig
and Tory journals alike mocked at me for my persis-
tent resistance. Even some good friends thought that
my fight was hopeless, and that the bigots held me fast
in their toils. I have, however, at last shaken myself
free of Mr. Newdegate and his common informer.
The judgment of the House of Lords in my favour is
final and conclusive, and the boasts of the Tories that
I should be made bankrupt for the penalties, have
now, for ever, come to naught. Yet but for the many
poor folk who have stood by me with their help and
sympathy, I should have long since been ruined. The
days and weeks spent in the Law Courts, the harassing
work connected with each stage of litigation, the
watching daily when each hearing was imminent, the
absolute hindrance of all provincial lecturing — it is
hardly possible for any one to judge the terrible mental
and pecuniary strain of all this long-drawn-out
struggle." Aye ! it killed him at last, twenty years
before his time, sapping his splendid vitality, under-
mining his iron constitution.

The blasphemy trial of Mr. Bradlaugh, Mr, Foote,

19

290 ANNIE BESANT.

and Mr. Ramsey now came on, but this time in the
Queen's Bench, before the Lord Chief Justice Coleridge.
I had the honour of sitting between Mr. Bradlaugh
and Mr. Foote, charged with the duty of having ready
for the former all his references, and with a duplicate
brief to mark off point after point as he dealt with it.
Messrs. Foote and Ramsey were brought up in custody,
but were brave and bright with courage unbroken.
Mr. Bradlaugh applied to have his case taken sepa-
rately, as he denied responsibility for the paper, and the
judge granted the application ; it was clearly proved that
he and I — the " Freethought Publishing Company " —
had never had anything to do with the production of the
paper ; that until November, 1 8 8 1 , we published it, and
then refused to publish it any longer ; that the reason
for the refusal was the addition of comic Bible illustra-
tions as a feature of the paper. I was called as witness
and began with a difficulty ; claiming to affirm, I was
asked by the judge if the oath would not be binding on
my conscience ; I answered that any promise was
binding on me whatever the form, and after some little
argument the judge found a way out of the insulting form
by asking whether the " invocation of the Deity added
anything to it of a binding nature — added any sanc-
tion ? " " None, my Lord," was the prompt reply,
and I was allowed to affirm. Sir Hardinge Giffard
subjected me to a very stringent cross-examination,
doing his best to entangle me, but the perfect frank-
ness of my answers broke all his weapons of finesse
and inuendo.

Some of the incidents of the trial were curious ;

STILL FIGHTING. 291

Sir Hardinge GifFard's opening speech was very able
and very unscrupulous. All facts in Mr. Brad-
laugh's favour were distorted or hidden ; anything
that could be used against him was tricked out in
most seductive fashion. Among the many monstrous
perversions of the truth made by this most pious
counsel, was the statement that changes of publisher,
and of registration of the Freethinker were made in
consequence of a question as to prosecuting it put in
the House of Commons. The change of publisher
was admittedly made in November ; the registration
was made for the first time in November, and could
not be changed, as there was no previous one. The
House of Commons was not sitting in November;
the question alluded to was asked in the following
February. This one deliberate lie of the " defender of
the faith " will do as well as quoting a score of others
to show how wickedly and maliciously he endeavoured
to secure an unjust verdict.

The speech over, a number of witnesses were called.
Sir Hardinge did not call witnesses who knew the facts,
such as Mr. Norrish, the shopman, or Mr. Whittle,
the printer. These he carefully avoided, although he
subpoenaed both, because he did not want the real facts
to come out. But he put in two solicitor's clerks, who
had been hanging about the premises, and buying
endless National Reformers and Freethinkers, sheaves
of them which were never used, but by which Sir
Hardinge hoped to convey the impression of a mass of
criminality. He put in a gentleman from the British
Museum, who produced two large books, presumed to

292 ANNIE BESANT.

be National Reformers and Freethinkers ; what they
were brought for nobody understood, the counsel for
the Crown as little as anyone, and the judge, surveying
them over his spectacles, treated them with supreme
contempt, as utterly irrelevant. Then a man came to
prove that Mr. Bradlaugh was rated for Stonecutter
Street, a fact no one disputed. Two policemen came
to say they had seen him go in. " You saw many
people go in, I suppose .? " queried the Lord Chief
Justice. On the whole the most miserably weak and
obviously malicious case that could be brought into a
court of law.

One witness, however, must not be forgotten — Mr.
Woodhams, bank manager. When he stated that Mr.
Maloney, the junior counsel for the Crown, had in-
spected Mr. Bradlaugh's banking account, a murmur of
surprise and indignation ran round the court. *' Oh !
oh ! " was heard from the crowd of barristers behind.
The judge looked down incredulously, and for a
moment the examination was stopped by the general
movement. Unless Sir Hardinge GifFard is a splendid
actor, he was not aware of the infamous proceeding,
for he looked as startled as the rest of his legal
brethren.

Another queer incident occurred, showing, perhaps
more than aught else, Mr. Bradlaugh's swift perception
of the situation and adaptation to the environment.
He wanted to read the Mansion House deposition of
Norrish, to show why he was not called ; the judge
objected, and declined to allow it to be read. A pause
while you might count five ; then : ** Well, I think I

STILL FIGHTING. 293

may say the learned counsel did not call Norrish
because ..." and then the whole substance of the
deposition was given in supposititious form. The
-judge looked down a minute, and then went off into
silent laughter impossible to control at the adroit change
of means and persistent gaining of end ; barristers all
round broke into ripples of laughter unrestrained; a
broad smile pervaded the jury box ; the only unmoved
person was the defendant who proceeded in his grave
statement as to what Norrish " might " have been
asked. The nature of the defence was very clearly
stated by Mr. Bradlaugh : " I shall ask you to
find that this prosecution is one of the steps in a
vindictive attempt to oppress and to crush a political
opponent — that it was a struggle that commenced on
my return to Parliament in 1880. If the prosecutor
had gone into the box I should have shown you that
he was one of the first then in the House to use the
suggestion of blasphemy against me there. Since then
I have never had any peace until the Monday of this
week. Writs for penalties have been served, and suits
of all kinds have been taken against me. On Monday
last the House of Lords cleared me from the
whole of one set, and, gentlemen, I ask you to-day to
clear me from another. Three times I have been re-
elected by my constituents, and what Sir Henry Tyler
asks you to do is to send me to them branded with the
dishonour of a conviction, branded not with the con-
viction for publishing heresy, but branded with the
conviction, dishonourable to me, of having lied in this
matter. I have no desire to have a prison's walls closed

294 ANNIE BESANT.

on me, but I would sooner ten times that, than that
my constituents should think that for one moment I
lied to escape the penalties. I am not indicted for
anything I have ever written or caused to be written.
As my Lord at the very first stage this morning
pointed out, it is no question with me. Are the
matters indicted blasphemous, or are they not blas-
phemous.? Are they defensible, or are they not
defensible ? That is not my duty here. On this I
make no comment. I have no duty here of even dis-
cussing the policy of the blasphemy laws, although I
cannot help thinking that, if I were here making my
defence against them, I might say that they were bad
laws unfairly revived, doing more mischief to those who
revive them than to those whom they are revived
against. But it is not for anything I have said myself ;
it is not for anything I have written myself ; it is not
for anything I have published myself. It is an en-
deavour to make me technically liable for a publication
with which I have nothing whatever to do, and I will
ask you to defeat that here. Every time I have suc-
ceeded I have been met with some new thing. When
I first fought it was hoped to defeat my election.
When I was re-elected it was sought to make me
bankrupt by enormous penalties, and when I escaped
the suit for enormous penalties they hope now to
destroy me by this. I have no question here about
defending my heresy, not because I am not ready to
defend it when it is challenged in the right way, and it
there be anything in it that the law can challenge. I
have never gone back from anything I have ever said ;

STILL FIGHTING. 295

I have never gone back from anything I have ever
written ; I have never gone back from anything I
have ever done ; and I ask you not to allow this Sir
Henry Whatley Tyler, who dares not come here to-
day, to use you as the assassin uses the dagger, to stab
a man from behind whom he never dares to face."

The summing up by Lord Coleridge was perfect in
eloquence, in thought, in feeling. Nothing more
touching could be imagined than the conflict between
the real religious feeling, abhorrent of heresy, and the
determination to be just, despite all prejudice. The
earnest effort lest the prejudice he felt as a Christian
should weigh also in the minds of the jury, and should
cause them to pervert justice. The absolute pleading
to them to do what was right and not to admit against
the unbeliever what they would not admit in ordinary
cases. Then the protest against prosecution of
opinions ; the admission of the difficulties in the
Hebrew Scriptures, and the pathetic fear lest by perse-
cution " the sacred truths might be struck through
the sides of those who are their enemies." For intellec-
tual clearness and moral elevation this exquisite piece
of eloquence, delivered in a voice of silvery beauty,
would be hard to excel, and Lord Coleridge did this
piece of service to the religion so dear to his heart,
that he showed that a Christian judge could be just
and righteous in dealing with a foe of his creed.

There was a time of terrible strain waiting for the
verdict, and when at last it came, " Not Guilty," a
sharp clap of applause hailed it, sternly and rightly
reproved by the judge. It was echoed by the country.

296 ANNIE BESANT.

which almost unanimously condemned the prosecution
as an iniquitous attempt on the part of Mr. Brad-
laugh's political enemies to put a stop to his political
career. Thus the Pall Mall Gazette wrote : —

" Whatever may be the personal or political or
religious aversion which is excited by Mr. Bradlaugh,
it is impossible for even his bitterest opponents to deny
the brilliance of the series of victories which he has
won in the law courts. His acquittal in the blasphemy
prosecution of Saturday was but the latest of a number
of encounters in which he has succeeded in turning the
tables upon his opponents in the most decisive fashion.
The policy of baiting Mr. Bradlaugh which has been
persisted in so long, savours so strongly of a petty and
malignant species of persecution that it is well that those
who indulge in it should be made to smart for their
pains. The wise and weighty words used by the Lord
Chief Justice in summing up should be taken seriously
to heart: 'Those persons are to be deprecated who
would pervert the law, even with the best intentions,
and " do evil that good may come, whose damnation "
(says the apostle) " is just." ' Without emulating the
severity of the apostle, we may say that it is satisfactory
that the promoters of all these prosecutions should be
condemned in costs."

In the separate trial of Messrs. Foote and Ramsey,
Mr. Foote again defended himself in a speech of
marked ability, and spoken of by the judge as "very
striking." Lord Coleridge made a noble charge to the
jury, in which he strongly condemned prosecutions of
unpopular opinions, pointing out that no prosecution

STILL FIGHTING. 297

short of extermination could be effective, and causti-
cally remarking on the very easy form of virtue
indulged in by persecutors. " As a general rule," he
said, "persecution, unless far more extreme than in
England in the nineteenth century is possible, is certain
to be in vain. It is also true, and I cannot help assent-
ing to it, that it is a very easy form of virtue. It is a
more difficult form of virtue, quietly and unostenta-
tiously to obey what we believe to be God's will in our
own lives. It is not very easy to do it ; and it makes
much less noise in the world. It is very easy to turn
upon somebody else who differs from us, and in the
guise of zeal of God's honour to attack somebody of
a difference of opinion, whose life may be more pleasing
to God and more conducive to His honour than our
own. And when it is done by persons whose own
lives are not free from reproach and who take that
particular form of zeal for God which consists in
putting the criminal law in force against others, that,
no doubt, does more to create a sympathy with the
defendant than with the prosecutor. And if it should
be done by those who enjoy the wit of Voltaire, and who
do not turn away from the sneers of Gibbon, and rather
relish the irony of Hume, our feelings do not go with
the prosecutors, and we are rather disposed to sympa-
thise with the defendant. It is still worse if the
person who takes such a course takes it, not from a kind
of notion that God wants his assistance, and that he can
give it less on his own account than by prosecuting
others — but it is mixed up with anything of partisan or
political feeling, then nothing can be more foreign to

298 ANNIE BESANT.

what is high-minded, or religious, or noble, in men's
conduct ; and indeed, it seems to me that any one who
will do that, not for the honour of God but for the
purpose of the ban, deserves the most disdainful dis-
approbation."

The jury disagreed, and a nolle prosequi was entered.
The net results of the trials were a large addition to the
membership of the National Secular Society, an increase
of circulation of Freethought literature, the raising of
Mr. Foote for a time to a position of great influence
and popularity, and the placing of his name in history
as a brave martyr for liberty of speech. The offence
against good taste will be forgotten ; the loyalty to
conviction and to courage will remain. History does
not ask if men who suffered for heresy ever published
a rough word ; it asks, Were they brave in their stead-
fastness ; were they faithful to the truth they saw ^. It
may be well to place on record Mr. Foote's punishment
for blasphemy : he spent twenty-two hours out of the
twenty-four alone in his cell ; his only seat was a stool
without a back ; his employment was picking matting ;
his bed was a plank with a thin mattress. During the
latter part of his imprisonment he was allowed some
books.

CHAPTER XIII.

SOCIALISM.

' I 'HE rest of 1883 passed in the usual way of hard
-■• work ; the Affirmation Bill was rejected, and the
agitation for Constitutional right grew steadily ; the
Liberal Press was won over, and Mr. Bradlaugh was
beginning to earn golden opinions on all sides for his
courage, his tenacity, and his self-control. A successful
International Congress at Amsterdam took some of us
over to the Northern Venice, where a most successful
gathering was held. To me, personally, the year has
a special interest, as being the one in which my attention
was called, though only partially, to the Socialist move-
ment. I had heard Louise Michelle lecture in the early
spring; a brief controversy in the National Reformer had
interested me, but I had not yet concerned myself with
the economic basis of Socialism ; I had realised that
the land should be public property, but had not gone
into the deeper economic causes of poverty, though the
question was pressing with ever-Increasing force on
heart and brain. Of Socialist teaching I knew nothing,
having studied only the older English Economists in my

younger days. In 1884 a more definite call to consider

399

300 ANNIE BESANT.

these teachings was to come, and I may perhaps open
the record of 1884 with the words of greeting spoken
by me to our readers in the first number of the Reformer
for that year ; "What tests 1884 may have for our
courage, what strains on our endurance, what trials of
our loyalty, none can tell. But this we know — that
every test of courage successfully met, every strain of
endurance steadily borne, every trial of loyalty nobly
surmounted, leaves courage braver, endurance stronger,
loyalty truer, than each was before. And therefore,
for our own and for the world's sake, I will not wish you,
friends, an 1884 in which there shall be no toil and no
battling ; but I will wish you, each and all, the hero's
heart and the hero's patience, in the struggle for the
world's raising that will endure through the coming
year."

On February 3rd I came for the first time across a
paper called Justice^ in which Mr. Bradlaugh was
attacked, and which gave an account of a meeting
of the Democratic Federation — not yet the Social
Democratic — in which a man had, apparently un-
rebuked, said that " all means were justifiable to
attain" working-class ends. I protested strongly
against the advocacy of criminal means, declaring
that those who urged the use of such means were
the worst foes of social progress. A few weeks
later the Echo repeated a speech of Mr. Hyndman's in
which a " bloodier revolution " than that of France was
prophesied, and the extinction of " book-learning "
seemed coupled with the success of Socialism, and this
again I commented on. But I had the pleasure, a week

SOCIALISM. 301

later, of reprinting from Justice a sensible paragraph,
condemning the advocacy of violence so long as free
agitation was allowed.

The spring was marked by two events on which I
have not time or space to dwell — the resignation by
Mr. Bradlaugh of his seat, on the reiteration of the
resolution of exclusion, and his triumphant return for
the fourth time by an increased majority, a vote of
4,032, a higher poll than that of the general election;
and the release of Mr. Foote, on February 25th, from
Holloway, whence he was escorted by a procession a
quarter of a mile in length. On the 12th of March
he and his fellow-prisoners received a magnificent re-
ception and were presented with valuable testimonials
at the Hall of Science.

Taking up again the thread of Socialism, the great de-
bate in St. James's Hall, London, between Mr. Bradlaugh
and Mr. Hyndman on April 17th, roused me to a serious
study of the questions raised. Socialism has in England
no more devoted, no more self-sacrificing advocate than
Henry Hyndman. A man of wide and deep reading,
wielding most ably a singularly fascinating pen, with
talents that would have made him wealthy in any
career he adopted, he has sacrificed himself without a
murmur to the people's cause. He has borne obloquy
from without, suspicion and unkindness from those he
served, and surrounded by temptations to betray the
people, he has never swerved from his integrity. He
has said rash things, has been stirred to passionate out-
bursts and reckless phrases, but love to the people and
sympathy with suffering lay at the root of his wildest

302 ANNIE BESANT.

words, and they count but little as against his faithful
service. Personally, my debt to him is of a mixed
character ; he kept me from Socialism for some time by
his bitter and very unjust antagonism to Mr. Bradlaugh;
but it was the debate at St. James's Hall that, while I
angrily resented his injustice, made me feel that there
was something more in practical Socialism than I had
imagined, especially when I read it over afterwards,
away from the magic of Mr. Bradlaugh's commanding
eloquence and personal magnetism. It was a sore pity
that English Socialists, from the outset of their move-
ment, treated Mr. Bradlaugh so unfairly, so that his
friends were set against Socialists ere they began to
examine their arguments. I must confess that my deep
attachment to him led me into injustice to his Socialist
foes in those early days, and often made me ascribe to
them calculated malignity instead of hasty and pre-
judiced assertion. Added to this, their uncurbed violence
in discussion, their constant interruptions during the
speeches of opponents, their reckless inaccuracy in
matters of fact, were all bars standing in the way of the
thoughtful. When I came to know them better, I
found that the bulk of their speakers were very young
men, overworked and underpaid, who spent their scanty
leisure in efforts to learn, to educate themselves, to
train themselves, and I learned to pardon faults which
grew out of the bitter sense of injustice, and which
were due largely to the terrible pressure of our system
on characters not yet strong enough — how few are
strong enough ! — to bear grinding injustice without loss
of balance and of impartiality. None save those who

SOCIALISM. 303

have worked with them know how much of real
nobility, of heroic self-sacrifice, of constant self-denial,
of brotherly affection, there is among the Social
Democrats.

At this time also I met George Bernard Shaw, one
of the most brilliant of Socialist writers and most pro-
voking of men ; a man with a perfect genius for
" aggravating " the enthusiastically earnest, and with a
passion for representing himself as a scoundrel. On
my first experience of him on the platform at South
Place Institute he described himself as a " loafer," and
I gave an angry snarl at him in the Reformer^ for a
loafer was my detestation, and behold ! I found that he
was very poor, because he was a writer with principles
and preferred starving his body to starving his conscience;
that he gave time and earnest work to the spreading of
Socialism, spending night after night in workmen's
clubs ; and that " a loafer " was only an amiable way of
describing himself because he did not carry a hod. Of
course I had to apologise for my sharp criticism as
doing him a serious injustice, but privately felt somewhat
injured at having been entrapped into such a blunder.
Meanwhile I was more and more turning aside from
politics and devoting myself to the social condition of
the people. I find myself, in June, protesting against Sir
John Lubbock's Bill which fixed a twelve-hour day as
the limit of a " young person's " toil. " A * day ' of
twelve hours is brutal," I wrote ; " if the law fixes
twelve hours as a ' fair day ' that law will largely
govern custom. I declare that a ' legal day ' should be
eight hours on five days in the week and not more than

304 ANNIE BESANT.

five hours on the sixth. If the labour is of an
exhausting character these hours are too long." On
every side now the Socialist controversy grew, and I
listened, read, and thought much, but said little. The
inclusion of John Robertson in the staff of the
Reformer brought a highly intellectual Socialist into
closer touch with us, and slowly I found that the case
for Socialism was intellectually complete and ethically
beautiflil. The trend of my thought was shown by
urging the feeding of Board School children, breaking
down under the combination of education and starva-
tion, and I asked, "Why should people be pauperised
by a rate-supported meal, and not pauperised by state -
supported police, drainage, road-mending, street-
lighting, &c ? " Socialism in its splendid ideal appealed
to my heart, while the economic soundness of its basis
convinced my head. All my life was turned towards
the progress of the people, the helping of man, and it
leaped forward to meet the stronger hope, the lofty
ideal of social brotherhood, the rendering possible to
all of freer life ; so long had I been striving thither-
ward, and here there opened up a path to the yearned-
for goal ! How strong were the feelings surging in my
heart may be seen in a brief extract from an article
published second week of January, 1885 : "Christian
charity.? We know its work. It gives a hundred-
weight of coal and five pounds of beef once a year to a
family whose head could earn a hundred such doles if
Christian justice allowed him fair wage for the work
he performs. It plunders the workers of the wealth
they make, and then flings back at them a thousandth

SOCIALISM. 305

part of their own product as * charity/ It builds
hospitals for the poor whom it has poisoned in filthy-
courts and alleys, and workhouses for the worn-out
creatures from whom it has wrung every energy, every
hope, every joy. Miss Cobbe summons us to admire
Christian civilisation, and we see idlers flaunting in the
robes woven by the toilers, a glittering tinselled super-
structure founded on the tears, the strugglings, the
grey, hopeless misery of the poor."

This first month of January, 1885, brought on me
the first attack for my Socialistic tendencies, from the
pen of Mr. W. P. Ball, who wrote to the Reformer
complaining of my paragraph, quoted above, in which
I had advocated rate-supported meals for Board School
children. A brief controversy thus arose, in which I
supported my opinion, waiving the question as to my
being " at heart a Socialist." In truth, I dreaded to
make the plunge of publicly allying myself with the
advocates of Socialism, because of the attitude of bitter
hostility they had adopted towards Mr. Bradlaugh. On
his strong, tenacious nature, nurtured on self-reliant
individualism, the arguments of the younger generation
made no impression. He could not change his methods
because a new tendency was rising to the surface, and
he did not see how different was the Socialism of our
day to the Socialist dreams of the past — noble ideals of
a future not immediately realisable in truth, but to be
worked towards and rendered possible in the days to
come. Could I take public action which might bring
me into collision with the dearest of my friends, which
might strain the strong and tender tie so long existing

20

306 ANNIE BESANT.

between us? My affection, my gratitude, all warred
against the idea of working with those who wronged
him so bitterly. But the cry of starving children was
ever in my ears ; the sobs of women poisoned in lead
works, exhausted in nail works, driven to prostitution
by starvation, made old and haggard by ceaseless work.
I saw their misery was the result of an evil system, was
inseparable from private ownership of the instruments
of wealth production ; that while the worker was him-
self but an instrument, selling his labour under the law
of supply and demand, he must remain helpless in the
grip of the employing classes, and that trade combinations
could only mean increased warfare — necessary, indeed,
for the time as weapons of defence — but meaning war,
not brotherly co-operation of all for the good of all. A
conflict which was stripped of all covering, a conflict
between a personal tie and a call of duty could not last
long, and with a heavy heart I made up my mind to
profess Socialism openly and work for it with all my
energy. Happily, Mr. Bradlaugh was as tolerant as he
was strong, and our private friendship remained un-
broken ; but he never again felt the same confidence in
my judgment as he felt before, nor did he any more
consult me on his own policy, as he had done ever since
we first clasped hands.

A series of articles in Our Corner on the " Redistri-
bution of Political Power," on the " Evolution of
Society," on " Modern Socialism," made my position
clear. *' Over against those who laud the present state
of Society, with its unjustly rich and its unjustly poor,
with its palaces and its slums, its millionaires and its

SOCIALISM. 307

paupers, be it ours to proclaim that there is a higher
ideal in life than that of being first in the race for
wealth, most successful in the scramble for gold. Be
it ours to declare steadfastly that health, comfort, leisure,
culture, plenty for every individual are far more de-
sirable than breathless struggle for existence, furious
trampling down of the weak by the strong, huge
fortunes accumulated out of the toil of others, to be
handed down to those who had done nothing to earn
them. Be it ours to maintain that the greatness of
a nation depends not on the number of its great pro-
prietors, on the wealth of its great capitalists, or the
splendour of its great nobles, but on the absence of
poverty among its people, on the education and refine-
ment of its masses, on the universality of enjoyment
in life. . . . Enough for each of work, of leisure, of
joy ; too little for none, too much for none — such is
the Social ideal. Better to strive after it worthily and
fail, than to die without striving for it at all."

Then I differentiated the methods of the Socialist
and the Radical Individualist, pleading for union among
those who formed the wings of the army of Labour,
and urging union of all workers against the idlers.
For the weakness of the people has ever been in their
divisions, in the readiness of each section to turn its
weapons against other sections instead of against the
common foe. All privileged classes, when they are
attacked, sink their differences and present a serried
front to their assailants ; the people alone fight with
each other, while the battle between themselves and the
privileged is raging.

308 ANNIE BESANT

I strove, as so many others were striving, to sound
in the ears of the thoughtless and the careless the cry
of the sufferings of the poor, endeavouring to make
articulate their misery. Thus in a description of Edin-
burgh slums came the following : *'I saw in a 'house'
which was made by boarding up part of a passage,
which had no window, and in which it was necessary to
burn an oil lamp all day, thus adding to the burden of
the rent, a family of three — man, wife, and child —
whose lot was hardly 'of their own making.' The
man was tall and bronzed, but he was dying of heart
disease ; he could not do hard work, and he was too
clumsy for light work ; so he sat there, after two days'
fruitless search, patiently nursing his miserable, scrofulous
baby in his dim and narrow den. The cases of indi-
vidual hopeless suffering are heartbreaking. In one
room lay a dying child, dying of low fever brought on
by want of food. ' It hae no faither,' sobbed the
mother ; and for a moment I did not catch the meaning
that the father had left to the mother all the burden of
a child unallowed by law. In another lay the corpse
of a mother, with the children round her, and hard-
featured, gentle-hearted women came in to take back to
their overcrowded beds * the mitherless bairns.' In
yet another a woman, shrunken and yellow, crouched
over a glimmer of fire ; " I am dying of cancer of the
womb," she said, with that pathetic resignation to the
inevitable so common among the poor. I sat chatting
for a few minutes. ' Come again, deary,' she said as
I rose to go ; * it's gey dull sitting here the day
through.' "

SOCIALISM. 309

The article in which these, among other descriptions,
occurred was closed with the following : " Passing out
of the slums into the streets of the town, only a few
steps separating the horror and the beauty, I felt, with
a vividness more intense than ever, the fearful contrasts
between the lots of men ; and with more pressing
urgency the question seemed to ring in my ears, *Is
there no remedy ? Must there always be rich and
poor ? ' Some say that it must be so ; that the palace
and the slum will for ever exist as the light and the
shadow. Not so do I believe. I believe that the
poverty is the result of ignorance and of bad social
arrangements, and that therefore it may be eradicated
by knowledge and by social change. I admit that for
many of these adult dwellers in the slums there is no
hope. Poor victims of a civilisation that hides its
brutality beneath a veneer of culture and of grace, for
them individually there is, alas ! no salvation. But for
their children, yes ! Healthy surroundings, good food,
mental and physical training, plenty of play, and care-
fully chosen work — these might save the young and
prepare them for happy life. But they are being left
to grow up as their parents were, and even when a few
hours of school are given them the home half-neutralises
what the education effects. The scanty aid given is
generally begrudged, the education is to be but ele-
mentary, as little as possible is doled out. Yet these
children have each one of them hopes and fears, possi-
bilities of virtue and of crime, a life to be made or
marred. We shower money on generals and on nobles,
we keep high-born paupers living on the national

310 ANNIE BESANT.

charity, we squander wealth with both hands on army
and navy, on churches and palaces ; but we grudge
every hal^enny that increases the education rate and
howl down every proposa to build decent houses for
the poor. We cover our heartlessness and indifference
with fine phrases about sapping the independence of the
poor and destroying their self-respect. With loathsome
hypocrisy we repair a prince's palace for him, and let
him live in it rent-free, without one word about the
degradation involved in his thus living upon charity ;
while we refuse to * pauperise ' the toiler by erecting
decent buildings in which he may live — not rent-free
like the prince, but only paying a rent which shall
cover the cost of erection and maintenance, instead of
one which gives a yearly profit to a speculator. And
so, year after year, the misery grows, and every great
city has on its womb a cancer, sapping its vitality,
poisoning its life-blood. Every great city is breeding
in its slums a race which is reverting through the
savage to the brute — a brute more dangerous in that
degraded humanity has possibilities of evil in it beyond
the reach of the mere wild beast. If not for Love's
sake, then for fear ; if not for justice or for human
pity, then for sheer desire of self-preservation ; I appeal
to the wise and to the wealthy to set their hands to the
cure of social evil, ere stolidity gives place to passion
and dull patience vanishes before fury, and they

"'Learn at last, in some wild hour, how much the wretched
dare."'

Because it was less hotly antagonistic to the Radicals

SOCIALISM. 311

than the two other Socialist organisations, I joined the
Fabian Society, and worked hard with it as a speaker
and lecturer. Sidney Webb, G. Bernard Shaw, Hubert
and Mrs. Bland, Graham Wallas-r-these were some of
those who gave time, thought, incessant work to the
popularising of Socialist thought, the spreading of sound
economics, the effort to turn the workers' energy
toward social rather than merely political reform. We
lectured at workmen's clubs wherever we could gain a
hearing, till we leavened London Radicalism with
Socialist thought, and by treating the Radical as the
unevolved Socialist rather than as the anti-Socialist, we
gradually won him over to Socialist views. We circu-
lated questions to be put to all candidates for parlia-
mentary or other offices, stirred up interest in local
elections, educated men and women into an under-
standing of the causes of their poverty, won recruits
for the army of propagandists from the younger of the
educated middle class. That the London working
classes to-day are so largely Socialist is greatly due to
the years of work done among them by members of the
Fabian Society, as well to the splendid, if occasionally
too militant, energy of the Social Democratic Federation,
and to the devotion of that noble and generous genius,
William Morris.

During this same year (1885) a movement was set
on foot in England to draw attention to the terrible
sufferings of the Russian political prisoners, and it was
decided at a meeting held in my house to form a society
of the friends of Russia, which should seek to spread
accurate and careful information ^bout the present con-

312 ANNIE BESANT.

dition of Russia. At that meeting were present Charles
Bradlaugh, " Stepniak," and many others, E. R. Pease
acting as honorary secretary. It is noteworthy that
some of the most prominent Russian exiles — such as
Kropotkin — take the view that the Tzar himself is not
allowed to know what occurs, and is very largely the
victim of the bureaucracy that surrounds him.

Another matter, that increased as the months went
on, was the attempt of the police authorities to stop
Socialist speaking in the open air. Christians, Free-
thinkers, Salvationists, agitators of all kinds were, for
the most part, left alone, but there was a regular
crusade against the Socialists. Liberal and Tory
journals alike condemned the way in which in Dod
Street, in September, the Socialists' meetings were
attacked. Quiet persistence was shown by the pro-
moters— members of the Social Democratic Federation
— and they were well supported by other Socialists and
by the Radical clubs. I volunteered to speak on
October 4th (my first Sunday in London after the
summoning and imprisoning of the speakers had com-
menced), but the attitude of the people was so deter-
mined on the preceding Sunday that all interference
was withdrawn,

Herbert Burrows stood for the School Board for the
Tower Hamlets in the November of this year, and I
find a paragraph in the Reformer in which I heartily
wished him success, especially as the first candidate
who had put forward a demand for industrial education.
In this, as in so many practical proposals, Socialists
have led the way. He polled 4,232 votes, despite the

SOCIALISM. 313

furious opposition of the clergy to him as a Freethinker,
of the publicans to him as a teetotaler, of the main-
tainers of the present social system to him as a Socialist.
And his fight did much to make possible my own
success in 1888.

With this autumn, too, began, in connection with
the struggle for the right of meeting, the helping
of the workmen to fair trial by providing of bail
and legal defence. The first case that I bailed
out was that of Lewis Lyons, sent to gaol for
two months with hard labour by Mr. Saunders, of
the Thames Police Court. Oh, the weary, sickening
waiting in the court for " my prisoner," the sordid
vice, the revolting details of human depravity to which
my unwilling eyes and ears were witnesses. I carried
Lyons off in triumph, and the Middlesex magistrates
quashed the conviction, the evidence being pronounced
by them to be "confusing, contradictory, and worth-
less." Yet but for the chance of one of us stepping
forward to offer bail and to provide the means for an
appeal (I acted on Mr. Bradlaugh's suggestion and
advice, for he acted as counsellor to me all through the
weary struggles that lasted till 1888, putting his great
legal knowledge at my disposal, though he often disap-
proved my action, thinking me Quixotic) — but for
this, Lewis Lyons would have had to suffer his heavy
sentence.

The general election took place this autumn, and
Northampton returned Mr. Bradlaugh for the fifth
time, thus putting an end to the long struggle, for he
took the oath and his seat in the following January,

314 ANNIE BESANT

and at once gave notice of an Oaths Bill, to give to all
who claimed it, under all circumstances, the right to
affirm. He was returned with the largest vote ever
polled for him — 4,315 — and he entered Parliament with
all the prestige of his great struggle, and went to the
front at once, one of the recognised forces in the House.
The action of Mr. Speaker Peel promptly put an end
to an attempted obstruction. Sir Michael Hicks Beach,
Mr. Cecil Raikes, and Sir John Hennaway had written
to the Speaker asking his interference, but the Speaker
declared that he had no authority, no right to stand
between a duly elected member and the duty of taking
the oath prescribed by statute. Thus ended the con-
stitutional struggle of six years, that left the victor well-
nigh bankrupt in health and in purse, and sent him to a
comparatively early grave. He lived long enough to
justify his election, to prove his value to the House
and to his country, but he did not live long enough
to render to England all the services which his long
training, his wide knowledge, his courage, and his
honesty so eminently fitted him to yield.

Our Corner now served as a valuable aid in Socialist
propaganda, and its monthly " Socialist Notes " became
a record of Socialist progress in all lands. We were
busy during the spring in organising a conference for
the discussion of " The Present Commercial System,
and the Better Utilisation of National Wealth for the
Benefit of the Community," and this was successfully
held at South Place Institute on June 9th, loth, nth,
the three days being given respectively to the *' Utilisa-
tion of Land," the " Utilisation of Capital," and the

SOCIALISM. 315

" Democratic Policy." On the 9 th Mr. Bradlaugh
spoke on the utilisation of waste lands, arguing that
in a thickly populated country no one had the right to
keep cultivable land uncultivated, and that where land
was so kept there should be compulsory expropriation,
the state taking the land and letting it out to culti-
vating tenants. Among the other speakers were
Edward Carpenter, William Morris, Sidney Webb,
John Robertson, William Saunders, W. Donnisthorpe,
Edward Aveling, Charlotte Wilson, Mrs. Fenwick
Miller, Hubert Bland, Dr. Pankhurst, and myself —
men and women of many views, met to compare
methods, and so help on the cause of social regene-
ration.

Bitter attacks were made on me for my Socialist
advocacy by some of the Radicals in the Freethought
party, and looking back I find myself condemned as a
" Saint Athanasius in petticoats," and as possessing a
" mind like a milk-jug." This same courteous critic
remarked, " I have heard Mrs. Besant described as
being, like most women, at the mercy of her last male
acquaintance for her views on economics." I was
foolish enough to break a lance in self-defence with
this assailant, not having then learned that self-defence
was a waste of time that might be better employed in
doing work for others. I certainly should not now
take the trouble to write such a paragraph as the
following : " The moment a man uses a woman's sex
to discredit her arguments, the thoughtful reader
knows that he is unable to answer the arguments
themselves. But really these silly sneers at woman's

3i6 ANNIE BESANT.

ability have lost their force, and are best met with a
laugh at the stupendous ' male self-conceit ' of the
writer, I may add that such shafts are specially point-
less against myself. A woman who thought her way
out of Christianity and Whiggism into Freethought
and Radicalism absolutely alone ; who gave up every
old friend, male and female, rather than resign the
beliefs she had struggled to in solitude ; who, again,
in embracing active Socialism, has run counter to the
views of her nearest ' male friends ' ; such a woman
may very likely go wrong, but I think she may venture,
without conceit, to at least claim independence of judg-
ment. I did not make the acquaintance of one of my
present Socialist comrades, male or female, until I had
embraced Socialism." A foolish paragraph, as are all
self-defences, and a mischievous one, as all retort breeds
fresh strife. But not yet had come the self-control
that estimates the judgments of others at their true
value, that recks not of praise and blame ; not yet had
I learned that evil should not be met with evil, wrath
with wrath ; not yet were the words of the Buddha the
law to which I strove to render obedience : " Hatred
ceases not by hatred at any time ; hatred ceases by
love." The year 1886 was a terrible one for labour,
everywhere reductions of wages, everywhere increase
of the numbers of the unemployed ; turning over the
pages of Our Corner^ I see " Socialist Notes " filled,
month after month, with a monotonous tale, " there is
a reduction of wages at " such and such a place ; so

many " men have been discharged at , owing to

the slackness of trade." Our hearts sank lower and

SOCIALISM. 317

lower as summer passed into autumn, and the coming
winter threatened to add to starvation the bitter pains
of cold. The agitation for the eight hours' day in-
creased in strength as the unemployed grew more
numerous week by week " We can't stand it," a
sturdy, quiet fellow had said to me during the pre-
ceding winter ; " flesh and blood can't stand it, and
two months of this bitter cold, too." " We may as
well starve idle as starve working," had said another,
with a fierce laugh. And a spirit of sullen discontent
was spreading everywhere, discontent that was wholly
justified by facts. But ah ! how patient they were for
the most part, how sadly, pathetically patient, this
crucified Christ, Humanity ; wrongs that would set
my heart and my tongue afire would be accepted as a
matter of course. O blind and mighty people, how
my heart went out to you ; trampled on, abused,
derided, asking so little and needing so much ; so
pathetically grateful for the pettiest services ; so loving
and so loyal to those who offered you but their poor
services and helpless love. Deeper and deeper into my
innermost nature ate the growing desire to succour, to
suffer for, to save. I had long given up my social
reputation, I now gave up with ever-increasing sur-
render ease, comfort, time ; the passion of pity grew
stronger and stronger, fed by each new sacrifice, and
each sacrifice led me nearer and nearer to the threshold
of that gateway beyond which stretched a path of re-
nunciation I had never dreamed of, which those might
tread who were ready wholly to strip off self for Man's
sake, who for Love's sake would surrender Love's

3i8 ANNIE BESANT.

return from those they served, and would go out into
the darkness for themselves that they might, with their
own souls as fuel, feed the Light of the World.

As the suffering deepened with the darkening months,
the meetings of the unemployed grew in number, and
the murmurs of discontent became louder. The Social
Democratic Federation carried on an outdoor agitation,
not without making blunders, being composed of human
beings, but with abundant courage and self-sacrifice.
The policy of breaking up Socialist meetings went on
while other meetings were winked at, and John Williams,
a fiery speaker, but a man with a record of pathetic
struggle and patient heroism, was imprisoned for two
months for speaking in the open air, and so nearly
starved in gaol that he came out with his health broken
for life.

1887 dawned, the year that was to close so stormily,
and Socialists everywhere were busying themselves on
behalf of the unemployed, urging vestries to provide
remunerative work for those applying for relief, assail-
ing the Local Government Board with practicable
proposals for utilising the productive energies of the
unemployed, circulating suggestions to municipalities
and other local representative bodies, urging remedial
measures. A four days' oral debate with Mr. Foote,
and a written debate with Mr. Bradlaugh, occupied
some of my energies, and helped in the process of
education to which public opinion was being subjected.
Both these debates were largely circulated as pamphlets.
A series of afternoon debates between representative
speakers was organised at South Place Institute, and

SOCIALISM. 319

Mr. Corrie Grant and myself had a lively discussion, I
affirming " That the existence of classes who live upon
unearned incomes is detrimental to the welfare of the
community, and ought to be put an end to by legisla-
tion." Another debate — in this very quarrelsome
spring of 1887 — was a written one in the National
Reformer between the Rev. G. F. Handel Rowe and
myself on the proposition, " Is Atheism logically
tenable, and is there a satisfactory Atheistic System
for the guidance of Human Conduct." And so the
months went on, and the menace of misery grew louder
and louder, till in September I find myself writing :
" This one thing is clear — Society must deal with the
unemployed, or the unemployed will deal with Society.
Stormier and stormier becomes the social outlook, and
they at least are not the worst enemies of Society who
seek to find some way through the breakers by which
the ship of the Commonwealth may pass into quiet
waters."

Some amusement turned up in the shape of a Charing
Cross Parliament, in which we debated with much
vigour the " burning questions " of the day. W^
organised a compact Socialist party, defeated a Liberal
Government, took the reins of office, and — after a
Queen's Speech in which her Majesty addressed her
loyal Commons with a plainness of speech never before
(or since) heard from the throne — we brought in several
Bills of a decidedly heroic character. G. Bernard Shaw,
as President of the Local Government Board, and I, as
Home Secretary, came in for a good deal of criticism
in connection with various drastic measures. An Inter-

320 ANNIE BESANT.

national Freethought Congress, held in London, entailed
fairly heavy work, and the science classes were ever
with us. Another written debate came with October,
this time on the " Teachings of Christianity," making
the fifth of these set discussions held by me during the
year. This same month brought a change, painful but
just : I resigned my much-prized position as co-editor
of the National Reformer^ and the number for October
23rd bore Charles Bradlaugh's name alone. The change
did not affect my work on the paper, but I became
merely a subordinate, though remaining, of course,
joint proprietor. The reason cannot be more accurately
given than in the paragraph penned at the time : " For
a considerable time past, and lately in increasing number,
complaints have reached me from various quarters of
the inconvenience and uncertainty that result from the
divided editorial policy of this paper on the question of
Socialism. Some months ago I proposed to avoid this
difficulty by resigning my share in the editorship ; but
my colleague, with characteristic liberality, asked me to
let the proposal stand over and see if matters would not
adjust themselves. But the difficulty, instead of dis-
appearing, has only become more pressing ; and we
both feel that our readers have a right to demand that
it be solved.

** When I became co-editor of this paper I was not a
Socialist ; and, although I regard Socialism as the
necessary and logical outcome of the Radicalism which
for so many years the National Reformer has taught,
still, as in avowing myself a Socialist I have taken a
distinct step, the partial separation of my policy in

SOCIALISM. 321

labour questions from that of my colleague has been of
my own making, and not of his, and it is, therefore,
for me to go away. Over by far the greater part of
our sphere of action we are still substantially agreed,
and are likely to remain so. But since, as Socialism
becomes more and more a question of practical politics,
differences of theory tend to produce differences in con-
duct ; and since a political paper must have a single
editorial programme in practical politics, it would
obviously be most inconvenient for me to retain my
position as co-editor. I therefore resume my former
position as contributor only, thus clearing the National
Reformer of all responsibility for the views I hold."
To this Mr. Bradlaugh added the following : —
** I need hardly add to this how very deeply I regret
the necessity for Mrs. Besant's resignation of the joint
editorship of this Journal, and the real grief I feel in
accepting this break in a position in which she has
rendered such enormous service to the Freethought and
Radical cause. As a most valued contributor I trust
the National Reformer may never lose the efficient aid
of her brain and pen. For thirteen years this paper
has been richer for good by the measure of her never-
ceasing and most useful work. I agree with her that a
journal must have a distinct editorial policy ; and I
think this distinctness the more necessary when, as in
the present case, every contributor has the greatest
freedom of expression. I recognise in the fullest
degree the spirit of self-sacrifice in which the lines,
to which I add these words, have been penned by Mrs.
Besant. '* Charles Bradlaugh."

21

322 ANNIE BESANT.

It was a wrench, this breaking of a tie for which a
heavy price had been paid thirteen years before, but it
was just. Any one who makes a change with which
pain is connected is bound, in honour and duty, to take
that pain as much as possible on himself ; he must not
put his sacrifice on others, nor pay his own ransom with
their coin. There must be honour kept in the life that
reaches towards the Ideal, for broken faith to that is
the only real infidelity.

And there was another reason for the change that I
dared not name to him, for his quick loyalty would
then have made him stubbornly determined against
change. I saw the swift turning of public opinion,
the gradual approach to him among Liberals who had
hitherto held aloof, and I knew that they looked upon
me as a clog and a burden, and that were I less promi-
nently with him his way would be the easier to tread.
So I slipped more and more into the background, no
longer went with him to his meetings ; my use to him
in public was over, for I had become hindrance instead
of help. While he was outcast and hated I had the
pride of standing at his side ; when all the fair-weather
friends came buzzing round him I served him best by
self-effacement, and I never loved him better than when
I stood aside. But I continued all the literary work
unaltered, and no change of opinions touched his kind-
ness to me, although when, a little later, I joined the
Theosophical Society, he lost his trust in my reasoning
powers and judgment.

In this same month of October the unemployed
began walking in procession through the streets, and

SOCIALISM. 323

harshness on the part of the police led to some rioting.
Sir Charles Warren thought it his duty to dragoon
London meetings after the fashion of Continental pre-
fects, with the inevitable result that an ill-feeling grew
up between the people and the police.

At last we formed a Socialist Defence Association, in
order to help poor workmen brought up and sentenced
on police evidence only, without any chance being given
them of proper legal defence, and I organised a band of
well-to-do men and women, who promised to obey a
telegraphic summons, night or day, and to bail out any
prisoner arrested for exercising the ancient right of
walking in procession and speaking. To take one
instance : Mr. Burleigh, the well-known war corre
spondent, and Mr. Winks were arrested and " run in "
with Mr. J. Knight, a workman, for seditious language.
I went down to the police-station to offer bail for the
latter : Chief-Constable Howard accepted bail for
Messrs. Burleigh and Winks, but refused it for Mr.
Knight. The next day, at the police-court, the pre-
posterous bail of ;^400 was demanded for Mr. Knight
and supplied by my faithful band, and on the next
hearing Mr. Poland, solicitor to the Treasury, withdrew
the charge against him for lack of evidence !

Then came the closing of Trafalgar Square, and the
unexpected and high-handed order that cost some men
their lives, many their liberty, and hundreds the most
serious injuries. The Metropolitan Radical Federation
had called a meeting for November 13th to protest
against the imprisonment of Mr. O'Brien, and as Mr.
Matthews, from his place in the House, had stated that

324 ANNIE BESANT.

there was no intention of interfering with bond fide
political meetings, the Radical clubs did not expect
police interference. On November 9th Sir Charles
Warren had issued an order forbidding all meetings
in the Square, but the clubs trusted the promise of
the Home Secretary. On Saturday evening only,
November 12th, when all arrangements were completed,
did he issue a peremptory order, forbidding processions
within a certain area. With this trap suddenly sprung
upon them, the delegates from the clubs, the Fabian
Society, the Social Democratic Federation, and the
Socialist League, met on that same Saturday evening to
see to any details that had been possibly left unsettled.
It was finally decided to go to the Square as arranged,
and, if challenged by the police, to protest formally
against the illegal interference, then to break up the
processions and leave the members to find their own
way to the Square. It was also decided to go Sunday
after Sunday to the Square, until the right of public
meetings was vindicated.

The procession I was in started from Clerkenwell
Green, and walked with its banner in fi-ont, and the
chosen speakers, including myself, immediately behind
the flag. As we were moving slowly and quietly along
one of the narrow streets debouching on Trafalgar
Square, wondering whether we should be challenged,
there was a sudden charge, and without a word the
police were upon us with uplifted truncheons ; the
banner was struck down, and men and women were
falling under a hail of blows. There was no attempt
at resistance, the people were too much astounded at

SOCIALISM. 325

the unprepared attack. They scattered, leaving some
of their number on the ground too much injured to
move, and then made their way in twos and threes to
the Square. It was garrisoned by police, drawn up in
serried rows, that could only have been broken by a
deliberate charge. Our orders were to attempt no
violence, and we attempted none. Mr. Cunninghame
Graham and Mr. John Burns, arm-in-arm, tried to pass
through the police, and were savagely cut about the
head and arrested. Then ensued a scene to be remem-
bered ; the horse police charged in squadrons at a hand-
gallop, rolling men and women over like ninepins, while
the foot police struck recklessly with their truncheons,
cutting a road through the crowd that closed imme-
diately behind them. I got on a waggonette and tried
to persuade the driver to pull his trap across one of the
roads, and to get others in line, so as to break the
charges of the mounted police ; but he was afraid, and
drove away to the Embankment, so I jumped out and
went back to the Square. At last a rattle of cavalry, and
up came the Life Guards, cleverly handled but hurting
none, trotting their horses gently and shouldering the
crowd apart ; and then the Scots Guards with bayonets
fixed marched through and occupied the north of the
Square. Then the people retreated as we passed round
the word, " Go home, go home.'* The soldiers were
ready to fire, the people unarmed ; it would have been
but a massacre. Slowly the Square emptied and all was
still. All other processions were treated as ours had
been, and the injuries inflicted were terrible. Peace-
able, law-abiding workmen, who had never dreamed

326 ANNIE BESANT.

of rioting, were left with broken legs,- broken arms,
wounds of every description. One man, Linnell,
died almost immediately, others from the effect of
their injuries. The next day a regular court-martial
in Bow Street Police Court, witnesses kept out by the
police, men dazed with their wounds, decent workmen
of unblemished character who had never been charged
in a police-court before, sentenced to imprisonment
without chance of defence. But a gallant band rallied
to their rescue. William T. Stead, most chivalrous of
journalists, opened a Defence Fund, and money rained
in ; my pledged bail came up by the dozen, and we got
the men out on appeal. By sheer audacity I got into the
police-court, addressed the magistrate, too astounded by
my profound courtesy and calm assurance to remember
that I had no right there, and then produced bail after
bail of the most undeniable character and respectability,
which no magistrate could refuse. Breathing-time
gained, a barrister, Mr. W. M. Thompson, worked
day after day with hearty devotion, and took up the
legal defence. Fines we paid, and here Mrs. Marx
Aveling did eager service. A pretty regiment I led
out of Millbank Prison, after paying their fines ; bruised,
clothes torn, hatless, we must have looked a disrepu-
table lot. We stopped and bought hats, to throw an
air of respectability over our cortege, and we kept
together until I saw the men into train and omnibus,
lest, with the bitter feelings now roused, conflict should
again arise. We formed the Law and Liberty League
to defend all unjustly assailed by the police, and thus
rescued many a man from prison ; and we gave poor

SOCIALISM. 327

Linnell, killed in Trafalgar Square, a public funeral.
Sir Charles Warren forbade the passing of the hearse
through any of the main thoroughfares west of
Waterloo Bridge, so the processions waited there for
it. W. T. Stead, R. Cunninghame Graham, Herbert
Burrows, and myself walked on one side the coffin,
William Morris, F. Smith, R. Dowling, and J. Seddon
on the other ; the Rev. Stewart D. Headlam, the
officiating clergyman, walked in front ; fifty stewards
carrying long wands guarded the coffin. From Wel-
lington Street to Bow Cemetery the road was one mass
of human beings, who uncovered reverently as the slain
man went by ; at Aldgate the procession took three-
quarters of an hour to pass one spot, and thus we bore
Linnell to his grave, symbol of a cruel wrong, the vast
orderly, silent crowd, bareheaded, making mute protest
against the outrage wrought.

It is pleasant to put on record here Mr. Bradlaugh's
grave approval of the heavy work done in the police-
courts, and the following paragraph shows how gene-
rously he could praise one not acting on his own lines :
"As I have on most serious matters of principle
recently differed very widely from my brave and loyal
co-worker, and as the difference has been regrettably
emphasised by her resignation of her editorial func-
tions on this Journal, it is the more necessary that I
should say how thoroughly I approve, and how grateful
I am to her for, her conduct in not only obtaining bail
and providing legal assistance for the helpless unfortu-
nates in the hands of the police, but also for her daily
personal attendance and wise conduct at the police-

328 ANNIE BESANT.

stations and police-courts, where she has done so much
to abate harsh treatment on the one hand and rash
folly on the other. While I should not have marked
out this as fitting woman's work, especially in the
recent very inclement weather, I desire to record my
view that it has been bravely done, well done, and
most usefully done, and I wish to mark this the more
emphatically as my views and those of Mrs. Besant
seem wider apart than I could have deemed possible on
many of the points of principle underlying what is
every day growing into a most serious struggle." Ever
did I find Charles Bradlaugh thus tolerant of differ-
ence of opinion, generously eager to approve what to
hirn seemed right even in a policy he disapproved.

The indignation grew and grew ; the police were
silently boycotted, but the people were so persistent
and so tactful that no excuse for violence was given,
until the strain on the police force began to tell, and
the Tory Government felt that London was being
hopelessly alienated ; so at last Sir Charles Warren fell,
and a wiser hand was put at the helm

y

CHAPTER XIV.

THROUGH STORM TO PEACE.

OUT of all this turmoil and stress rose a Brother-
hood that had in it the promise of a fairer day.
Mr. Stead and I had become close friends — he Christian,
I Atheist, burning with one common love for man, one
common hatred against oppression. And so in Our
Corner for February, 1888, I wrote : —

"Lately there has been dawning on the minds of
men far apart in questions of theology, the idea of
founding a new Brotherhood, in which service of Man
should take the place erstwhile given to service of
God — a brotherhood in which work should be worship
and love should be baptism, in which none should be
regarded as alien who was willing to work for human
good. One day as I was walking towards Millbank
Gaol with the Rev. S. D. Headlam, on the way to
liberate a prisoner, I said to him : * Mr. Headlam, we
ought to have a new Church, which should include all
who have the common ground of faith in and love for
man.' And a little later I found that my friend Mr.
W. ^T. Stead, editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, had
long been brooding over a similar thought, and

330 ANNIE BESANT.

wondering whether men ' might not be persuaded to
be as earnest about making this world happy as they
are over saving their souls.' The teaching of social
duty, the upholding of social righteousness, the build-
ing up of a true commonwealth — such would be among
the aims of the Church of the future. Is thcihope too
fair for realisation .? Is the winning of such beatific
vision yet once more the dream of the enthusiast ? But
surely the one fact that persons so deeply differing in
theological creeds as those who have been toiling for
the last three months to aid and relieve the oppressed,
can work in absolute harmony side by side for the one
end — surely this proves that there is a bond which is
stronger than our antagonisms, a unity which is deeper
than the speculative theories which divide."

How unconsciously I was marching towards the
Theosophy which was to become the glory of my life,
groping blindly in the darkness for that very brother-
hood, definitely formulated on these very lines by those
Elder Brothers of our race, at whose feet I was so soon
to throw myself. How deeply this longing for some-
thing loftier than I had yet found had wrought itself
into my life, how strong the conviction was growing
that there was something to be sought to which the
service of man was the road, may be seen in the
following passage from the same art:icle : —

" It has been thought that in these days of factories
and of tramways, of shoddy, and of adulteration, that
all life must tread with even rhythm of measured foot-
steps, and that the glory of the ideal could no longer
glow over the greyness of a modern horizon. But

THROUGH STORM TO PEACE. 331

signs are not awanting that the breath of the older
heroism is beginning to stir men's breasts, and that the
passion for justice and for liberty, which thrilled
through the veins of the world's greatest in the past,
and woke our pulses to responsive throb, has not yet
died wholly out of the hearts of men. Still the quest
of the Holy Grail exercises its deathless fascination,
but the seekers no longer raise eyes to heaven, nor
search over land and sea, for they know that it waits
them in the suffering at their doors, that the consecra-
tion of the holiest is on the agonising masses of the
poor and the despairing, the cup is crimson with the
blood of the

" ' People, the grey-grown speechless Christ.'

... If there be a faith that can remove the mountains
of ignorance and evil, it is surely that faith in the
ultimate triumph of Right in the final enthronement of
Justice, which alone makes life worth the living, and
which gems the blackest cloud of depression with the
rainbow- coloured arch of an immortal hope."

As a step towards bringing about some such union
of those ready to work for man, Mr. Stead and I pro-
jected the Link^ a halfpenny weekly, the spirit of which
was described in its motto, taken from Victor Hugo :
*' The people are silence. I will be the advocate of
this silence. I will speak for the dumb. I will speak
of the small to the great and of the feeble to the
strong. ... I will speak for all the despairing silent
ones. I will interpret this stammering ; I will interpret
the grumblings, the murmurs, the tumults of crowds, the

332 ANNIE BESANT.

complaints ill-pronounced, and all these cries of beasts
that, through ignorance and through suffering, man is
forced to utter ... I will be the Word of the People.
I will be the bleeding mouth whence the gag is snatched
out. I will say everything." It announced its object
to be the " building up " of a " New Church, dedi-
cated to the service of man,'* and " what we want to
do is to establish in every village and in every street
some man or woman who will sacrifice time and labour
as systematically and as cheerfully in the temporal
service of man as others do in what they believe to be
the service of God." Week after week we issued our
little paper, and it became a real light in the darkness.
There the petty injustices inflicted on the poor found
voice ; there the starvation wages paid to women found
exposure ; there sweating was brought to public notice.
A finisher of boots paid 2s. 6d. per dozen pairs and
'• find your own polish and thread " ; women working
for loj hours per day, making shirts — *' fancy best " — at
from lod. to 3s. per dozen, finding their own cotton
and needles, paying for gas, towel, and tea (compulsory),
earning from 4s. to los. per week for the most part ; a
mantle finisher 2s, 2d. a week, out of which 6d. for
materials ; " respectable hard-working woman " tried
for attempted suicide, "driven to rid herself of life
from want." Another part of our work was defending
people from unjust landlords, exposing workhouse
scandals, enforcing the Employers' Liability Act,
Charles Bradlaugh's Truck Act, forming " Vigilance
Circles" whose members kept watch in their own
district over cases of cruelty to children, extortion.

THROUGH STORM TO PEACE. 333

Insanitary workshops, sweating, &c., reporting each
case to me. Into this work came Herbert Burrows,
who had joined hands with me over the Trafalgar
Square defence, and who wrote some noble articles in
the Link. A man loving the people with passionate
devotion, hating oppression and injustice with equal
passion, working himself with remorseless energy,
breaking his heart over wrongs he could not remedy.
His whole character once came out in a sentence when
he was lying delirious and thought himself dying :
" Tell the people how I have loved them always."

In our crusade for the poor we worked for the
dockers. " To-morrow morning, in London alone
20,000 to 25,000 adult men," wrote Sidney Webb,
" will fight like savages for permission to labour
in the docks, for /\d. an hour, and one-third of
them will fight in vain, and be turned workless
away." We worked for children's dinners. " If we
insist on these children bein^- educated, is it not
necessary that they shall be fed ? If not, we waste on
them knowledge they cannot assimilate, and torture
many of them to death. Poor waifs of humanity, we
drive them into the school and bid them learn ; and
the pitiful,, wistfial eyes question us why we inflict this
strange new suffering, and bring into their dim lives
this new pang. ' Why not leave us alone .? * ask the
pathetically patient little faces. Why not, indeed,
since for these child martyrs of the slums. Society has
only formulas, not food." We cried out against
" cheap goods," that meant " sweated and therefore
stolen goods." "The ethics of buying should surely

334 ANNIE BESANT.

be simply enough. We want a particular thing, and
we do not desire to obtain it either by begging or by
robbery ; but if in becoming possessed of it, we neither
beg it nor steal, we must give for it something equivalent
in exchange ; so much of our neighbour's labour has
been put into the thing we desire ; if we will not yield
him fair equivalent for that labour, yet take his article,
we defraud him, and if we are not willing to give that
fair equivalent we have no right to become the owners
of his product."

This branch of our work led to a big fight — a fight
most happy in its results. At a meeting of the Fabian
Society, Miss Clementina Black gave a capital lecture
on Female Labour, and urged the formation of a Con-
sumers' League, pledged only to buy from shops
certificated " clean " from unfair wage. H. H. Cham-
pion, in the discussion that followed, drew attention
to the wages paid by Bryant & May (Limited), while
paying an enormous dividend to their shareholders, so
that the value of the original £^ shares was quoted at
j^i8 7s. 6d. Herbert Burrows and I interviewed
some of the girls, got lists of wages, of fines, &c. " A
typical case is that of a girl of sixteen, a piece-worker ;
she earns 4s, a week, and lives with a sister, employed
by the same firm, who ' earns good money, as much as
8s. or 9s. a week.' Out of the earnings 2s. a week is
paid for the rent of one room. The child lives only
on bread and butter and tea, alike for breakfast and
dinner, but related with dancing eyes that once a
month she went to a meal where * you get coffee and
bread and butter, and jam and marmalade, and lots of

THROUGH STORM TO PEACE. 335

it.' " We published the fects under the title of " White
Slavery in London," and called for a boycott of
Bryant & May's matches. " It is time some one came
and helped us," said two pale-faced girls to me ; and I
asked : " Who will help ? Plenty of people wish
well to any good cause ; but very few care to exert
themselves to help it, and still fewer will risk anything
in its support. ' Some one ought to do it, but why
should I ? ' is the ever re-echoed phrase of weak-kneed
amiability. ' Some one ought to do it, so why not I ? '
is the cry of some earnest servant of man, eagerly
forward springing to face some perilous duty. Be-
tween those two sentences lie whole centuries of moral
evolution."

I was promptly threatened with an action for libel,
but nothing came of it ; it was easier to strike at the
girls, and a few days later Fleet Street was enlivened
by the irruption of a crowd of match-girls, demanding
Annie Besant. I couldn't speechify to match-girls in
Fleet Street, so asked that a deputation should come
and explain what they wanted. Up came three women
and told their story : they had been asked to sign a
paper certifying that they were well treated and con-
tented, and that my statements were untrue ; they
refused. "You had spoke up for us," explained one,
" and we weren't going back on you." A girl, pitched
on as their leader, was threatened with dismissal ; she
stood firm ; next day she was discharged for some
trifle, and they all threw down their work, some 1,400
of them, and then a crowd of them started off to me
to ask what to do next. If we ever worked in our

33<5 ANNIE BESANT.

lives, Herbert Burrows and I worked for the next fort-
night. And a pretty hubbub we created ; we asked for
money, and it came pouring in ; we registered the girls
to receive strike pay, wrote articles, roused the clubs,
held public meetings, got Mr. Bradlaugh to ask
questions in Parliament, stirred up constituencies in
which shareholders were members, till the whole
country rang with the struggle. Mr. Frederick
Charrington lent us a hall for registration, Mr. Sidney
Webb and others moved the National Liberal Club to
action ; we led a procession of the girls to the House
of Commons, and interviewed, with a deputation of
them, Members of Parliament who cross-questioned
them. The girls behaved splendidly, stuck together,
kept brave and bright all through. Mr. Hobart of the
Social Democratic Federation, Messrs. Shaw, Bland, and
Oliver, and Headlam of the Fabian Society, Miss
Clementina Black, and many another helped in the heavy
work. The London Trades Council finally consented
to act as arbitrators and a satisfactory settlement was
arrived at ; the girls went in to work, fines and deduc-
tions were abolished, better wages paid ; the Match-
makers' Union was established, still the strongest
woman's Trades Union in England, and for years I
acted as secretary, till, under press of other duties, I
resigned, and my work was given by the girls to Mrs.
Thornton Smith ; Herbert Burrows became, and still is,
the treasurer. For a time there was friction between
the Company and the Union, but it gradually dis-
appeared under the influence of conmion sense on both
sides, and we have found the manager ready to consider

THROUGH STORM TO PEACE. 337

any just grievance and to endeavour to remove it, while
the Company have been liberal supporters of the
Working Women's Club at Bow, founded by H. P.
Blavatsky.

The worst suffering of all was among the box-
makers, thrown out of work by the strike, and they
were hard to reach. Twopence-farthing per gross of
boxes, and buy your own string and paste, is not
wealth, but when the work went more rapid starvation
came. Oh, those trudges through the lanes and alleys
round Bethnal Green Junction late at night, when our
day's work was over ; children lying about on shavings,
rags, anything ; famine looking out of baby faces, out
of women's eyes, out of the tremulous hands of men.
Heart grew sick and eyes dim, and ever louder sounded
the question, " Where is the cure for sorrow, what the
way of rescue for the world ? "

In August I asked for a *' match-girls* drawing-
room." " It will want a piano, tables for papers, for
games, for light literature ; so that it may offer a
bright, homelike reflige to these girls, who now have
no real homes, no playground save the streets. It is
not proposed to build an ' institution ' with stern and
rigid discipline and enforcement of prim behaviour, but
to open a home, filled with the genial atmosphere of
cordial comradeship, and self-respecting freedom — the
atmosphere so familiar to all who have grown up in the
blessed shelter of a happy home, so strange, alas ! to
too many of our East London girls." In the same
month of August, two years later, H. P. Blavatsky
opened such a home.

22

338 ANNIE BESANT.

Then came a cry for help from South London, from
tin-box makers, illegally fined, and in many cases
grievously mutilated by the non-fencing of machinery ;
then aid to shop assistants, also illegally fined ; legal
defences by the score still continued ; a vigorous
agitation for a free meal for children, and for fair wages
to be paid by all public bodies ; work for the dockers
and exposure of their wrongs ; a visit to the Cradley
Heath chain-makers, speeches to them, writing for
them ; a contest for the School Board for the Tower
Hamlets division, and triumphant return at the head of
the poll. Such were some of the ways in which the
autumn days were spent, to say nothing of scores of
lectures — Secularist, Labour, Socialist — and scores of
articles written for the winning of daily bread. When
the School Board work was added I felt that I had as
much work as one woman's strength could do.

Thus was ushered in 1889, the to me never-to-be-
forgotten year in which I found my way " Home," and
had the priceless good fortune of meeting, and of
becoming the pupil of, H. P. Blavatsky. Ever more
and more had been growing on me the feeling that
something more than I had was needed for the cure of
social ills. The Socialist position sufficed on the
economic side, but where to gain the inspiration, the
motive, which should lead to the realisation of the
Brotherhood of Man ? Our efforts to really organise
bands of unselfish workers had failed. Much indeed
had been done, but there was not a real movement of
self-sacrificing devotion, in which men worked for
Love's sake only, and asked but to give, not to take.

MEMIIKUS (II- TllK MATCIIMAKKUS INION.

THROUGH STORM TO PEACE. 339

Where was the material for the nobler Social Order,
where the hewn stones for the building of the Temple
of Man ? A great despair would oppress me as I
sought for such a movement and found it not.

Not only so ; but since 1886 there had been slowly
growing up a conviction that my philosophy was not
sufficient ; that life and mind were other than, more
than, I had dreamed. Psychology was advancing with
rapid strides ; hypnotic experiments were revealing
unlooked-for complexities in human consciousness,
strange riddles of multiplex personalities, and, most
startling of all, vivid intensities of mental action when
the brain, that should be the generator of thought, was
reduced to a comatose state. Fact after fact came
hurtling in upon me, demanding explanation I was
incompetent to give. I studied the obscurer sides of
consciousness, dreams, hallucinations, illusions, insanity.
Into the darkness shot a ray of light — A. P. Sinnett's
" Occult World," with its wonderfully suggestive
letters, expounding not the supernatural but a nature
under law, wider than I had dared to conceive. I
added Spiritualism to my studies, experimenting pri-
vately, finding the phenomena indubitable, but the
spiritualistic explanation of them incredible. The
phenomena of clairvoyance, clairaudience, thought-
reading, were found to be real. Under all the rush of
the outer life, already sketched, these questions were
working in my mind, their answers were being dili-
gently sought. I read a variety of books, but could
find little in them that satisfied me. I experimented in
various ways suggested in them, and got some (to me)

340 ANNIE BESANT.

curious results. I finally convinced myself that there
was some hidden thing, some hidden power, and
resolved to seek until; I found, and by the early spring
of 1889 I had grown desperately determined to find at
all hazards what I sought. At last, sitting alone in
deep thought as I had become accustomed to do after
the sun had set, filled with an intense but nearly hope-
less longing to solve the riddle of life and mind, I heard
a Voice that was later to become to me the holiest
sound on earth, bidding me take courage for the light
was near. A fortnight passed, and then Mr. Stead
gave into my hands two large volumes. " Can you
review these ? My young men all fight shy of them,
but you are quite mad enough on these subjects to
make something of them." I took the books ; they
were the two volumes of "The Secret Doctrine," written
by H. P. Blavatsky.

Home I carried my burden, and sat me down to
read. As I turned over page after page the interest
became absorbing; but how familiar it seemed; how my
mind leapt forward to presage the conclusions, how
natural it was, how coherent, how subtle, and yet how
intelligible. I. was dazzled, blinded by the light in
which disjointed facts were seen as parts of a mighty
whole, and all my puzzles, riddles, problems, seemed to
disappear. The effect was partially illusory in one
sense, in that they all had to be slowly unravelled later,
the brain gradually assimilating that which the swift
intuition had grasped as truth. But the light had been
seen, and in that flash of illumination I knew that the
weary search was over and the very Truth was found.

THROUGH STORM TO PEACE. 341

I wrote the review, and asked Mr. Stead for an
introduction to the writer, and then sent a note asking
to be allowed to call. I received the most cordial of
notes, bidding me come, and in the soft spring evening
Herbert Burrows and I — for his aspirations were as
mine on this matter — walked from Notting Hill
Station, wondering what we should meet, to the door
of 17, Lansdowne Road. A pause, a swift passing
through hall and outer room, through folding-doors
thrown back, a figure in a large chair before a table, a
voice, vibrant, compelling, " My dear Mrs. Besant, I
have so long wished to see you," and I was standing
with my hand in her firm grip, and looking for the
first time in this life straight into the eyes of " H. P
B." I was conscious of a sudden leaping forth of my
heart — was it recognition ? — and then, I am ashamed to
say, a fierce rebellion, a fierce withdrawal, as of some
wild animal when it feels a mastering hand. I sat
down, after some introductions that conveyed no ideas
to me, and listened. She talked of travels, of various
countries, easy brilliant talk, her eyes veiled, her exqui-
sitely moulded fingers rolling cigarettes incessantly.
Nothing special to record, no word of Occultism,
nothing mysterious, a woman of the world chatting
with her evening visitors. We rose to go, and for a
moment the veil lifted, and two brilliant, piercing eyes
met mine, and with a yearning throb in the voice :
" Oh, my dear Mrs. Besant, if you would only come
among us ! " I felt a well-nigh uncontrollable desire
to bend down and kiss her, under the compulsion of
that yearning voice, those compelling eyes, but with a

342 , ANNIE BESANT.

flash of the old unbending pride and an inward jeer at
my own folly, I said a commonplace polite good-bye,
and turned away with some inanely courteous and
evasive remark. " Child," she said to me long after-
wards, " your pride is terrible ; you are as proud as
Lucifer himself" But truly I think I never showed it
to her again after that first evening, though it sprang up
wrathfully in her defence many and many a time, until
I learned the pettiness and the worthlessness of all
criticism, and knew that the blind were objects of com-
passion not of scorn.

Once again I went, and asked about the Theosophical
Society, wishful to join, but fighting against it. For I
saw, distinct and clear — with painful distinctness, indeed
— what that joining would mean. I had largely con-
quered public prejudice against me by my work on the
London School Board, and a smoother road stretched
before me, whereon effort to help should be praised not
blamed. Was I to plunge into a new vortex of strife,
and make myself a mark for ridicule — worse than
hatred — and fight again the weary fight for an un-
popular truth ? Must I turn against Materialism, and
face the shame of publicly confessing that I had been
wrong, misled by intellect to ignore the Soul ? Must I
leave the army that had battled for me so bravely, the
friends who through all brutality of social ostracism had
held me dear and true ? And he, the strongest and
truest friend of all, whose confidence I had shaken by
my Socialism — must he suffer the pang of seeing his
co-worker, his co-fighter, of whom he had been so
proud, to whom he had been so generous, go over to

THROUGH STORM TO PEACE. 343

the opposing hosts, and leave the ranks of Materialism?
What would be the look in Charles Bradlaugh's eyes
when I told him that I had become a Theosophist?
The struggle was sharp and keen, but with none of the
anguish of old days in it, for the soldier had now fought
many fights and was hardened by many wounds. And
so it came to pass that I went again to Lansdowne
Road to ask about the Theosophical Society. H. P.
Blavatsky looked at me piercingly for a moment.
" Have you read the report about me of the Society
for Psychical Research ^ " " No; I never heard of it, so
far as I know." " Go and read it, and if, after reading
it, you come back — well." And nothing more would
she say on the subject, but branched ofF to her expe-
riences in many lands.

I borrowed a copy of the Report, read and re-read it
Quickly I saw how slender was the foundation on which
the imposing structure was built. The continual
assumptions on which conclusions were based ; the
incredible character of the allegations ; and — most
damning fact of all — the foul source from which the
evidence was derived. Everything turned on the
veracity of the Coulombs, and they were self-stamped
as partners in the alleged frauds. Could I put such
against the frank, fearless nature that I had caught a
glimpse of, against the proud fiery truthfulness that
shone at me from the clear, blue eyes, honest and fear-
less as those of a noble child ? Was the writer of
" The Secret Doctrine " this miserable impostor, this
accomplice of tricksters, this foul and loathsome
deceiver, this conjuror with trap-doors and sliding

344 ANNIE BESANT.

panels? I laughed aloud at the absurdity and flung
the Report aside with the righteous scorn of an honest
nature that knew its oWn kin when it met them, and
shrank from the foulness and baseness of a lie. The
next day saw me at the Theosophical Publishing Com-
pany's office at 7, Duke Street, Adelphi, where Coun-
tess Wachtmeister — one of the lealest of H. P. B.'s
friends — was at work, and I signed an application to be
admitted as fellow of the Theosophical Society.

On receiving my diploma I betook myself to Lans-
downe Road, where I found H. P. B. alone. I went
over to her, bent down and kissed her, but said no
word. " You have joined the Society ? " " Yes."
"You have read the report.?" "Yes." "Well.?"
I knelt down before her and clasped her hands in mine,
looking "Straight into her eyes, " My answer is, will
you accept me as your pupil, and give me the honour
of proclaiming you my teacher in the face of the
world.? '* Her stern, set face softened, the unwonted
gleam of tears sprang to her eyes ; then, with a dignity
more than regal, she placed her hand upon my head.
" You are a noble woman. May Master bless you."

From that day, the loth of May, 1889, until now —
two years three and half months after she left her body,
on May 8, 1891 — my faith in her has never wavered,
my trust in her has never been shaken. I gave her my
faith on an imperious intuition, I proved her true day
after day in closest intimacy living by her side ; and I
speak of her with the reverence due from a pupil to a
teacher who never failed her, with the passionate grati-
tude which, in our School, is the natural meed of the

THROUGH STORM TO PEACE. 345

one who opens the gateway and points out the path.
" Folly ! fanaticism ! " scoffs the Englishman of the nine-
teenth century. Be it so. I have seen, and I can wait.
I have been told that I plunged headlong into
Theosophy and let my enthusiasm carry me away. I
think the charge is true, in so far as the decision was
swiftly taken ; but it had been long led up to, and
realised the dreams of childhood on the higher planes
of intellectual womanhood. And let me here say that
more than all I hoped for in that first plunge has been
realised, and a certainty of knowledge has been gained
on doctrines seen as true as that swift flash of illumina-
tion. I know^ by personal experiment, that the Soul
exists, and that my Soul, not my body, is myself ; that
it can leave the body at will ; that it can, disembodied,
reach and learn from living human teachers, and bring
back and impress on the physical brain that which it
has learned ; that this process of transferring conscious-
ness from one range of being, as it were, to another,
is a very slow process, during which the body and
brain are gradually correlated with the subtler form
which is essentially that of the Soul, and that my own
experience of it, still so imperfect, so fragmentary,
when compared with the experience of the highly
trained, is like the first struggles of a child learning
to speak compared with the perfect oratory of the
practised speaker ; that consciousness, so far from
being dependent on the brain, is more active when
freed from the gross forms of matter than when en-
cased within them ; that the great Sages spoken of
by H. P. Blavatsky exist ; that they wield powers and

346 ANNIE BESANT.

possess knowledge before which our control of Nature
and knowledge of her ways is but as child's play. All
this, and much more, have I learned, and I am but
a pupil of low grade, as it were in the infant class ot
the Occult School ; so the first plunge has been
successful, and the intuition has been justified. This
same path of knowledge that I am treading is open
to all others who will pay the toll demanded at the gate-
way— and that toll is willingness to renounce everything
for the sake of spiritual truth, and willingness to give
all the truth that is won to the service of man, keeping
back no shred for self.

On June 23rd, in a review of " The Secret Doctrine "
in the National Reformer^ the following passages occur,
and show how swiftly some of the main points of the
teaching had been grasped. (There is a blunder in the
statement that of the seven modifications of Matter
Science knows only four, and till lately knew only
three; these four are sub-states only, sub-divisions of
the lowest plane.)

After saying that the nineteenth-century Englishman
would be but too likely to be repelled if he only
skimmed the book, I went on : " With telescope and
with microscope, with scalpel and with battery, Western
Science interrogates nature, adding fact to fact, storing
experience after experience, but coming ever to gulfs
unfathomable by its plummets, to heights unscalable
by its ladders. Wide and masterful in its answers to
the ' How ? ' the * Why ? ' ever eludes it, and causes
remain enwrapped in gloom. Eastern Science uses as
its scientific instrument the penetrating faculties of the

THROUGH STORM TO PEACE. 347

mind alone, and regarding the material plane as Maya
— illusion — seeks in the mental and spiritual planes of
being the causes of the material effects. There, too, is
the only reality ; there the true existence of which the
visible universe is but the shadow.

" It is clear that from such investigations some
further mental equipment is necessary than that
normally afforded by the human body. And here
comes the parting of the ways between East and
West. For the study of the material universe, our
five senses, aided by the instruments invented by
Science, may suffice. For all we can hear and see,
taste and handle, these accustomed servitors, though
often blundering, are the best available guides to know-
ledge. But it lies in the nature of the case that they
are useless when the investigation is to be into modes
of existence which cannot impress themselves on our
nerve-ends. For instance, what we know as colour
is the vibration frequency of etheric waves striking
on the retina of the eye, between certain definite limits
— 759 trillions of blows fi-om the maximum, 436
trillions from the minimum — these waves give rise in
us to the sensation which the brain translates into
colour. (Why the 436 trillion blows at one end of
a nerve become *Red' at the other end we do not
know; we chronicle the fact but cannot explain it.)
But our capacity to respond to the vibration cannot
limit the vibrational capacity of the ether ; to us the
higher and lower rates of vibration do not exist, but
if our sense of vision were more sensitive we should
see where now we are blind. Following this line of

348 ANNIE BESANT.

thought we realise that matter may exist in forms
unknown to us, in modifications to which our senses
are unable to respond. Now steps in the Eastern
Sage and says : ' That which you say may be, is ;
we have developed and cultivated senses as much
superior to yours as your eye is superior to that of
the jelly-fish ; we have evolved mental and spiritual
faculties which enable us to investigate on the higher
planes of being with as much certainty as you are
investigating on the physical plane ; there is nothing
supernatural in the business, any more than your
knowledge is supernatural, though much above that
accessible to the fish ; we do not speculate on these
higher forms of existence ; we know them by personal
study, just as you know the fauna and flora of your
world. The powers we possess are not supernatural,
they are latent in every human being, and will be
evolved as the race progresses. All that we have done
is to evolve them more rapidly than our neighbours, by
a procedure as open to you as it was to us. Matter is
everywhere, but it exists in seven modifications of which
you only know four, and until lately only knew three ;
in those higher forms reside the causes of which you
see the effects in the lower, and to know these causes
you must develop the capacity to take cognisance of
the higher planes.' "

Then followed a brief outline of the cycle of evolu-
tion, and I went on : *' What part does man play
in this vast drama of a universe ? Needless to say, he
is not the only living form in a Cosmos, which for the
most part is uninhabitable by him. As Science has

THROUGH STORM TO PEACE. 349

shown living forms everywhere on the material plane,
races in each drop of water, life throbbing in every leaf
and blade, so the ' Secret Doctrine * points to living
forms on higher planes of existence, each suited to its
environment, till all space thrills with life, and nowhere
is there death, but only change. Amid these myriads
are some evolving towards humanity, some evolving
away from humanity as we know it, divesting themselves
of its grosser parts. For man is regarded as a seven-
fold being, four of these parts belonging to the animal
body, and perishing at, or soon after, death ; while
three form his higher self, his true individuality, and
these persist and are immortal. These form the Ego,
and it is this which passes through many incarnations,
learning life's lesson as it goes, working out its own
redemption within the limits of an inexorable law,
sowing seeds of which it ever reaps the harvest, building
its own fate with tireless fingers, and finding nowhere in
the measureless time and space around it any that can
lift for it one weight it has created, one burden it has
gathered, unravel for it one tangle it has twisted, close
for it one gulf it has digged."

Then after noting the approaches of Western Science
to Eastern, came the final words : " It is of curious
interest to note how some of the latest theories seem to
catch glimpses of the Occult Doctrines, as though
Science were standing on the very threshold of know-
ledge which shall make all her past seem small.
Already her hand is trembling towards the grasp of
forces beside which all those now at her command are
insignificant. How soon will her grip fasten on them ?

350 ANNIE BESANT.

Let us hope not until social order has been trans-
formed, lest they should only give more to those
who have, and leave the wretched still wretcheder
by force of contrast. Knowledge used by selfishness
widens the gulf that divides man fi-om man and race
from race, and we may well shrink from the idea of
new powers in Nature being yoked to the car of
Greed. Hence the wisdom of those * Masters,' in
whose name Madame Blavatsky speaks, has ever denied
the knowledge which is power until Love's lesson has
been learned, and has given only into the hands of
the selfless the control of those natural forces which,
misused, would wreck society."

This review, and the public announcement, demanded
by honesty, that I had joined the Theosophical Society,
naturally raised somewhat of a storm of criticism, and
the National Reformer of June 30th contained the
following : " The review of Madame Blavatsky's book
in the last National Reformer^ and an announcement in
the Star^ have brought me several letters on the subject
of Theosophy. I am asked for an explanation as
to what Theosophy is, and as to my own opinion on
Theosophy — the word * theosoph ' is old, and was used
among the Neo-platonists. From the dictionary its
new meaning appears to be, ' one who claims to have a
knowledge of God, or of the laws of nature by means
of internal illumination.' An Atheist certainly cannot
be a Theosophist. A Deist might be a Theosophist.
A Monist cannot be a Theosophist. Theosophy
must at least involve Dualism. Modern Theosophy,
according to Madame Blavatsky, as set out in last

THROUGH STORM TO PEACE. 351

week's issue, asserts much that I do not believe, and
alleges some things that, to me, are certainly not true.
I have not had the opportunity of reading Madame
Blavatsky's two volumes, but I have read during the
past ten years many publications from the pen of her-
self. Colonel Olcott, and of other Theosophists. They
appear to me to have sought to rehabilitate a kind of
Spiritualism in Eastern phraseology. I think many of
their allegations utterly erroneous, and their reasonings
wholly unsound. I very deeply regret indeed that my
colleague and co-worker has, with somewhat of sudden-
ness, and without any interchange of ideas with myself,
adopted as facts matters which seem to me to be as
unreal as it is possible for any fiction to be. My
regret is greater as I know Mrs. Besant's devotion
to any course she believes to be true. I know that she
will always be earnest in the advocacy of any views
she undertakes to defend, and I look to possible
developments of her Theosophic views with the very
gravest misgiving. The editorial policy of this paper
is unchanged, and is directly antagonistic to all forms
of Theosophy. I would have preferred on this subject
to have held my peace, for the public disagreeing with
Mrs. Besant on her adoption of Socialism has caused
pain to both ; but on reading her article and taking
the public announcement made of her having joined
the Theosophical organisation, I owe it to those who
look to me for guidance to say this with clearness.

"Charles Bradlaugh."

" It is not possible for me here to state fully my

352 ANNIE BESANT.

reasons for joining the Theosophical Society, the three
objects of which are : To found a Universal Brother-
hood without distinction of race or creed ; to forward
the study of Aryan literature and philosophy ; to
investigate unexplained laws of nature and the physical
powers latent in man. On matters of religious opinion
the members are absolutely free. The founders of the
society deny a personal God, and a somewhat subtle
form of Pantheism is taught as the Theosophic view of
the universe, though even this is not forced on members
of the society. I have no desire to hide the fact that
this form of Pantheism appears to me to promise
solution of some problems, especially problems in
psychology, which Atheism leaves untouched.

"Annie Besant."

Theosophy, as its students well know, so far from
involving Dualism, is based on the One, which becomes
Two on manifestation, just as Atheism posits one
existence, only cognisable in the duality force and
matter, and as philosophic — though not popular —
Theism teaches one Deity whereof are spirit and matter.
Mr. Bradlaugh's temperate disapproval was not copied
in its temperance by some other Freethought leaders,
and Mr. Foote especially distinguished himself by the
bitterness of his attacks. In the midst of the whirl I
was called away to Paris to attend, with Herbert
Burrows, the great Labour Congress held there from ^
July 15 th to July 20th, and spent a day or two at
Fontainebleau with H. P. Blavatsky, who had gone
abroad for a few weeks' rest. There I found her

THROUGH STORM TO PEACE. 353

translating the wonderful fragments from " The Book
of the Golden Precepts," now so widely known under
the name of " The Voice of the Silence." She wrote it
swiftly, without any material copy before her, and in
the evening made me read it aloud to see if the
"English was decent." Herbert Burrows was there,
and Mrs. Candler, a staunch American Theosophist,
and we sat round H. P. B. while I read. The
translation was in perfect and beautiful English, flow-
ing and musical ; only a word or two could we find
to alter, and she looked at us like a startled child,
wondering at our praises — praises that any one with
the literary sense would endorse if they read that
exquisite prose poem.

A little earlier in the same day I had asked her as to
the agencies at work in producing the taps so constantly
heard at Spiritualistic Seances. " You don't use spirits
to produce taps," she said ; " see here." She put her
hand over my head, not touching it, and I heard and
felt slight taps on the bone of my skull, each sending
a little electric thrill down the spine. She then care-
fully explained how such taps were producible at any
point desired by the operator, and how interplay of the
currents to which they were due might be caused
otherwise than by conscious human volition. It was
in this fashion that she would illustrate her verbal
teachings, proving by experiment the statements made
as to the existence of subtle forces controllable by the
trained mind. The phenomena all belonged to the
scientific side of her teaching, and she never committed
the folly of claiming authority for her philosophic

23

354 ANNIE BESANT.

doctrines on the ground that she was a wonder-worker.
And constantly she would remind us that there was no
such thing as " miracle " ; that all the phenomena she
had produced were worked by virtue of a knowledge
of nature deeper than that of average people, and by
the force of a well-trained mind and will ; some of
them were what she would describe as " psychological
tricks," the creation of images by force of imagination,
and in pressing them on others as a " collective halluci-
nation " ; others, such as the moving of solid articles,
either by an astral hand projected to draw them towards
her, or by using an Elemental ; others by reading in
the Astral Light, and so on. But the proof of the
reality of her mission from those whom she spoke of
as Masters lay not in these comparatively trivial
physical and mental phenomena, but in the splendour
of her heroic endurance, the depth of her knowledge,
the selflessness of her character, the lofty spirituality of
her teaching, the untiring passion of her devotion, the
incessant ardour of her work for the enlightening of
men. It was these, and not her phenomena, that won
for her our faith and confidence — we who lived beside
her, knowing her daily life — and we gratefully accepted
her teaching not because she claimed any authority, but
because it woke in us powers, the possibility of which
in ourselves we had not dreamed of, energies of the
Soul that demonstrated their own existence.

Returning to London from Paris, it became necessary
to make a very clear and definite presentment of my
change of views, and in the Reformer of August 4th
I find the following : " Many statements are being

THROUGH STORM TO PEACE. 355

made just now about me and my beliefs, some of which
are absurdly, and some of which are maliciously, untrue.
I must ask my friends not to give credence to them.
It would not be fair to my friend Mr. Bradlaugh to ask
him to open the columns of this Journal to an exposition
of Theosophy from my pen, and so bring about a long
controversy on a subject which would not interest the
majority of the readers of the National Reformer. This
being so I cannot here answer the attacks made on me.
I kdi^ however, that the party with which I have
worked for so long has a right to demand of me some
explanation of the step I have taken, and I am therefore
preparing a pamphlet dealing fully with the question.
Further, I have arranged with Mr. R. O. Smith to take
as subject of the lectures to be delivered by me at the
Hall of Science on August 4th and nth *Why I
became a Theosophist.' Meanwhile I think that my
years of service in the ranks of the Freethought party
give me the right to ask that I should not be con-
demned unheard, and I even venture to suggest, in
view of the praises bestowed on me by Freethinkers
in the past, that it is possible that there may be
something to be said, from the intellectual standpoint,
in favour of Theosophy. The caricatures of it which
have appeared from some Freethinkers' pens represent
it about as accurately as the Christian Evidence carica-
tures of Atheism represent that dignified philosophy
of life ; and, remembering how much they are them-
selves misrepresented, I ask them to wait before they
judge."

The lectures were delivered, and were condensed

356 ANNIE BESANT.

into a pamphlet bearing the same title, which has had
a very great circulation. It closed as follows : —

" There remains a great stumblingblock in the minds
of many Freethinkers which is certain to prejudice
them against Theosophy, and which offers to oppo-
nents a cheap subject for sarcasm — the assertion that
there exist other living beings than the men and
animals found on our own globe. It may be well for
people who at once turn away when such an assertion
is made to stop and ask themselves whether they really
and seriously believe that throughout this mighty uni-
verse, in which our little planet is but as a tiny speck
of sand in the Sahara, this one planet only is inhabited
by living things ? Is all the universe dumb save for
our voices ? eyeless save for our vision ? dead save for
our life? Such a preposterous belief was well enough
in the days when Christianity regarded our world as
the centre of the universe, the human race as the one
for which the Creator had deigned to die. But now
that we are placed in our proper position, one among
countless myriads of worlds, what ground is there for
the preposterous conceit which arrogates as ours all
sentient existence? Earth, air,. water, all are teeming
with living things suited to their environment ; our
globe is overflowing with life. But the moment we
pass in thought beyond our atmosphere everything is
to be changed. Neither reason nor analogy support
such a supposition. It was one of Bruno's crimes that
he dared to teach that other worlds than ours were
inhabited ; but he was wiser than the monks who
burned him. All the Theosophists aver is that each

THROUGH STORM TO PEACE. 357

phase of matter has living things suited to it, and that
all the universe is pulsing with life. * Superstition ! '
shriek the bigoted. It is no more superstition than
the belief in Bacteria, or in any other living thing
invisible to the ordinary human eye. * Spirit * is a
misleading word, for, historically, it connotes immate-
riality and a supernatural kind of existence, and the
Theosophist believes neither in the one nor the other.
With him all living things act in and through a mate-
rial basis, and * matter ' and ' spirit * are not found
dissociated. But he alleges that matter exists in states
other than those at present known to science. To deny
this is to be about as sensible as was the Hindu prince
who denied the existence of ice because water, in his
experience, never became solid. Refusal to believe
until proof is given is a rational position ; denial of all
outside of our own limited experience is absurd.

" One last word to my Secularist friends. If you
say to me, ' Leave our ranks,' I will leave them ; I
force myself on no party, and the moment I feel
myself unwelcome I will go.^ It has cost me pain
enough and to spare to admit that the Materialism
from which I hoped all has failed me, and by such
admission to bring on myself the disapproval of some
of my nearest friends. But here, as at other times in
my life, I dare not purchase peace with a lie. An
imperious necessity forces me to speak the truth, as
I see it, whether the speech please or displease, whether

* I leave these words as they were written in 1889. I resigned
my office in the N.S.S. in 1890, feeling that the N.S.S. was so
identified with Materialism that it had no longer place for me.

358 ANNIE BESANT.

it bring praise or blame. That one loyalty to Truth I
must keep stainless, whatever friendships fail me or
human ties be broken. She may lead me into the
wilderness, yet I must follow her ; she may strip me
of all love, yet I must pursue her ; though she slay me,
yet will I trust in her ; and I ask no other epitaph on
my tomb but

"'SHE TRIED TO FOLLOW TRUTH.'"

Meanwhile, with this new controversy on my hands,
the School Board work went on, rendered possible,
I ought to say, by the generous assistance of friends
unknown to me, who sent me ^^150 a year during
the last year and a half So also went on the vigorous
Socialist work, and the continual championship of
struggling labour movements, prominent here being
the organisation of the South LoYidon fur-pullers into
a union, and the aiding of the movement for shortening
the hours of tram and 'bus men, the meetings for which
had to be held after midnight. The feeding and
clothing of children also occupied much time and
attention, for the little ones in my district were,
thousands of them, desperately poor. My studies
I pursued as best I could, reading in railway carriages,
tramcars, omnibuses, and stealing hours for listening to
H. P. B. by shortening the nights.

In October, Mr. Bradlaugh's shaken strength re-
ceived its death-blow, though he was to live yet
another fifteen months. He collapsed suddenly under
a most severe attack of congestion and lay in imminent
peril, devotedly nursed by his only remaining child,

THROUGH STORM TO PEACE. 359

Mrs. Bonner, his elder daughter having died the
preceding autumn. Slowly he struggled back to
life, after four weeks in bed, and, ordered by his
physician to take rest and if possible a sea voyage,
he sailed for India on November 28th, to attend
the National Congress, where he was enthusiastically
acclaimed as " Member for India."

In November I argued a libel suit, brought by me
against the Rev. Mr. Hoskyns, vicar of Stepney, who
had selected some vile passages from a book which was
not mine and had circulated them as representing my
views, during the School Board election of 1888. I
had against me the Solicitor-General, Sir Edward
Clarke, at the bar, and Baron Huddleston on the
bench ; both counsel and judge did their best to
browbeat me and to use the coarsest language, en-
deavouring to prove that by advocating the limitation
of the family I had condemned chastity as a crime.
Five hours of brutal cross-examination left my denial
of such teachings unshaken, and even the pleadings of
the judge for the clergyman, defending his parishioners
against an unbeliever and his laying down as law that
the statement was privileged, did not avail to win a
verdict. The jury disagreed, not, as one of them told
me afterwards, on the question of the libel, but on some
feeling that a clergyman ought not to be mulcted in
damages for his over-zeal in defence of his faith against
the ravening wolf of unbelief, while others, regarding
the libel as a very cruel one, would not agree to a
verdict that did not carry substantial damages. I did
not carry the case to a new trial, feeling that it was not

36o ANNIE BESANT.

worth while to waste time over it further, my innocence
of the charge itself having been fully proved.

Busily the months rolled on, and early in the year
1890 H. P. Blavatsky had given to her ^T 1,000, to use
in her discretion for human service, and if she thought
well, in the service of women. After a good deal of
discussion she fixed on the establishment of a club in
East London for working girls, and with her approval
Miss Laura Cooper and I hunted for a suitable place.
Finally we fixed on a very, large and old house, 193,
Bow Road, and some months went in its complete
renovation and the building of a hall attached to it.
On August 15th it was opened by Madame Blavatsky,
and dedicated by her to the brightening of the lot of
hardworking and underpaid girls. It has nobly ful-
filled its mission for the last three years. Very tender
was H. P. B.'s heart to human suffering, especially to
that of women and children. She was very poor
towards the end of her earthly life, having spent all
on her mission, and refusing to take time from her
Theosophical work to write for the Russian papers
which were ready to pay highly for her pen. But her
slender purse was swiftly emptied when any human
pain that money could relieve came in her way. One
day I wrote a letter to a comrade that was shown to her,
about some little children to -whom I had carried a
quantity of country flowers, and I had spoken of their
faces pinched with want. The following characteristic
note came to me : —

"My Dearest Friend, — I have just read your

THROUGH STORM TO PEACE. 361

letter to and my heart is sick for the poor little

ones ! Look here ; I have but 30s. of my own money
of which I can dispose (for as you know I am a pauper,
and proud of it), but I want you to take them and not
say a word. This may buy thirty dinners for thirty
poor little starving wretches, and I may feel happier
for thirty minutes at the thought. Now don't say
a word, and do it ; take them to those unfortunate
babies who loved your flowers and felt happy. For-
give your old uncouth frieod, useless in this world !

" Ever yours,

" H. P. B.*'

It was this tenderness of hers that led us, after she
had gone, to found the " H . P. B. Home for little
children," and one day we hope to fulfil her expressed
desire that a large but homelike Refuge for outcast
children should be opened under the auspices of the
Theosophical Society.

The lease of 17, Lansdowne Road expiring in the
early summer of 1890, it was decided that 19, Avenue
Road should be turned into the headquarters of the
Theosophical Society in Europe. A hall was built
for the meetings of the Blavatsky Lodge — the lodge
founded by her — and various alterations made. In
July her staff of workers was united under one roof;
thither came Archibald and Bertram Keightley, who
had devoted themselves to her service years before, and
the Countess Wachtmeister, who had thrown aside all
the luxuries of wealth and of high social rank to give
all to the cause she served and the friend she loved

362 ANNIE BESANT.

with deep and faithful loyalty ; and Geofge Mead, her
secretary and earnest disciple, a man of strong brain
and strong character, a fine scholar and untiring
worker ; thither, too, Claude Wright, most lovable of
Irishmen, with keen insight underlying a bright and
sunny nature, careless on the surface, and Walter Old,
dreamy and sensitive, a born psychic, and, like many
such, easily swayed by those around him ; Emily
Kislingbury also, a studious and earnest woman ;
Isabel Cooper Oakley, intuitional and studious, a rare
combination, and a most devoted pupil in Occult
studies ; James Pryse, an American, than whom none
is more devoted, bringing practical knowledge to the
help of the work, and making possible the large
development of our printing department. These, with
myself, were at first the resident stafl^, Miss Cooper and
Herbert Burrows, who were also identified with the
work, being prevented by other obligations from living
always as part of the household.

The rules of the house were — and are — very simple,
but H. P. B. insisted on great regularity of life ; we
breakfasted at 8 a.m., worked till lunch at i, then
again till dinner at 7. Aiter dinner the outer work
for the Society was put aside, and we gathered in
H. P. B.'s room where we would sit talking over
plans, receiving instructions, listening to her explana-
tion of knotty points. By 12 midnight all the lights
had to be extinguished. My public work took me
away for many hours, unfortunately for myself, but
such was the regular run of our busy lives. She
herself wrote incessantly ; always suffering, but of

THROUGH STORM TO PEACE. 363

indomitable will, she drove her body through its tasks,
merciless to its weaknesses and its pains. Her pupils
she treated very variously, adapting herself with nicest
accuracy to their differing natures ; as a teacher she
was marvellously patient, explaining a thing over and
over again in different fashions, until sometimes after
prolonged failure she would throw herself back in her
chair : " My God ! " (the easy " Mon Dieu " of the .
foreigner) '* am I a fool that you can't understand .''
Here, So-and-so " — to some one on whose countenance
a faint gleam of comprehension was discernible — " tell
these flapdoodles of the ages what I mean." With
vanity, conceit, pretence of knowledge, she was merci-
less, if the pupil were a promising one ; keen shafts of
irony would pierce the sham. With some she would
get very angry, lashing them out of their lethargy with
fiery scorn ; and in truth she made herself a mere
instrument for the training of her pupils, careless what
they, or any one else thought of her, providing that
the resulting benefit to them was secured. And we,
who lived around her, who in closest intimacy
watched her day after day, we bear witness to the un-
selfish beauty of her lite, the nobility of her character,
and we lay at her feet our most reverent gratitude for
knowledge gained, lives purified, strength developed.
O noble and heroic Soul, whom the outside purblind
world misjudges, but whom your pupils partly saw,
never through lives and deaths shall we repay the debt
of gratitude we owe to you.

And thus I came through storm to peace, not to the
peace of an untroubled sea of outer life, which no

364 ANNIE BESANT.

strong soul can crave, but to an inner peace that outer
troubles may not avail to ruffle — a peace which belongs
to the eternal not to the transitory, to the depths not
to the shallows of life. It carried me scatheless through
the terrible spring of 1891, when death struck down
Charles Bradlaugh in the plenitude of his usefulness,
and unlocked the gateway into rest for H. P. Blavatsky.
Through anxieties and responsibilities heavy and nume-
rous it has borne me ; every strain makes it stronger ;
every trial makes it serener ; every assault leaves it
more radiant. Quiet confidence has taken the place of
doubt ; a strong security the place of anxious dread.
In life, through death, to life, I am but the servant of
the great Brotherhood, and those on whose heads but
for a moment the touch of the Master has rested in
blessing can never again look upon the world save
through eyes made luminous with the radiance of the
Eternal Peace.

PEACE TO ALL BEINGS.

LIST OF BOOKS QUOTED.

"Autobiography," J. S. Mill, 184

"Christian Creed, The," 173

" Freethinkers' Text-book," 144

"Gospel of Atheism, The," 145, 152, 158, 168

"Gospels of Christianity and Freethought," 164

"Life, Death, and Immortality," 147, 149, 150

Link, The, 333

National Reformer, The, 79, 80, 280, 346-50, 354

Our Corner, 286, 329

Theosophist, The, 282, 288

"True Basis of Morality," 156

" Why I do Not Believe in God," 146

"World without God," 165, 169, 172

INDEX.

Affirmation Bill brought in, zij

rejected, 299

Atheist, position as an, 139
Authorship, first attempts at, 84.

Bennett, D. M., prosecution of, 232
Blasphemy prosecution, 283, 287, 289
Blavatsky, H. P., 189, 337

, meeting with, 341

*' Bloody Sunday," 324.

Bradlaugh, Charles, first meeting with, 135

as friend, 137

in the Clock Tower, 258

and the scene in the House, 265

V, Newdigatej result, 289

prosecuted for blasphemy, 283, 289

Confirmation, 51

Daughter, application to remove, 213

, denied access to, 219

Death of father, 21

of mother, 126

Doubt the first, 58

"Elements of Social Science," 196

Engagement, 69

Essay, first Freethought, 113

Fenii-.ns, the, 73

Fleet hir.ker prosecution, 183, 287, 296

Freethought Publishing Company, the, 28 5

Harrow, life at, 30

Hoskyns, Rev. £., libel action against,
359

Knowlton pamphlet, the, 205

prosecution, 208

trial, 210

"Law of Population, The," 212, 220
" Law and Liberty League," the, 326
Lecture, the first, 18 r
Linnell, the Trafalgar Square victim, 326

, funeral of, 327

Link, founding of the, 331

Malthusian League formed, 229
Malthusianism and Theosophy, 24.0
Marriage, 70

tie broken, 1 10

Match-girls' strike, 335
Union, established, 336

National Rfformer, the, 1 34

, first contribution to, 180

, resignation of co-editorship, 320

National Secular Society joined, 135

, elected vice-president of, 202

, resignation of, 357

Northampton Election, 183
struggle, 253, 3^4

Oaths Bill, the, 314, 32}
Our Corner, 28 6, 314

Z<>}

368

INDEX.

Political Opinions, 174
Pusey, Dr., 109, 284

Russian politics, 311

Scientific work, 249
School Board, election to, 338
Scott, Thomas, 112, 127
Socialism, 299

, debate on, between Messrs. Brad-
laugh and Hyndman, 301
Socialist debates, 318, 319
Socialists and open-air speaking, 312

Defence Association, 323

Stanley, Dean, 23, 122

Theosophical Society, the, 280

, joined, 344

headquarters established, 361

Theosophy and Charles Bradlaugh, 350

the National Secular Society, 357

Trafalgar Square, closing of, to the public,

Truelove, Edward, trial of, 225
Voysey, Rev. Charles, 106
Working Women's Club, 337, 360

Published in England only by
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■ ■

NEW EDITION^ REVISED,

THE SECRET DOCTRINE.

BY

H. P. BLAVATSKY.

Volume I. contains a general outline of the Esoteric Doctrine in its relation
to the formation of the Solar System, preceded by a statement of the funda-
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The Mysteries of Religious and Occult Symbology are treated at considerable
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Volume II. deals with the Esoteric Doctrine as to the evolution of Man
on this earth.

This volume contains an account of the various origins of Man.

It gives the outline of his evolutionary history down to the close of the race
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IN MEMORIAM H, P. B.

A SHILLING BOOK

That every Theosophist should have in order to repel the Slanderous Attacks
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It consists of Twenty-five Articles on her Life and Character by her friends
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jTrom t\)t Catjes anti jungles
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By H. P. BLAVATSKY.

A translation of Mme. Blavatsky's famous letters from India, to
the Russian Messenger of Moscow, in 1879 ; full of strange secrets of
Indian life, and gorgeous pictures of Oriental nature. A few of the
subjects are : Bombay ; the Parsi Towers of Silence ; the Sacred
Vultures ; a Hospital for Sick Tigers ; a Dusky Madonna ; Hindu
Friends ; a Rajput Adept ; a Yogi's Cave ; Moonlight and Monkeys ;
a Subterranean Palace; Secret Libraries; Over a Precipice; Saved
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a Mysterious Echo ; a Bewitched Tiger ; a Secret Passage ; From
Cell to Cell ; a Poison-Breath ; Saved by Gulab Lai Sing ; Hercules
and Egypt ; an Enchanted Island ; the Rajput Sphinx ; the Harps of
the Maruts ; Mediums and Ghosts ; the Marble Rocks ; an Avenue
of Fakirs ; Mystic Trances ; Himalayan Sages ; the Pride of Science ;
the Sweet Influences of the Pleiades, and the Bands of Orion.

Cloth, thick ?)VO,pp. 318. Price Js. 6d.

" It is not necessary to be a Theosophist to admire Madame Blavatsky's
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power on the part of the writer, they reveal a mind already biassed strongly
towards Oriental mysticism, and intensely susceptible to the weirder aspects
of Hindu life. Her power of penetrating into the sympathies and secrets of
the natives might be imitated in moderation by Anglo-Indians with advantage."
'—^Ttmes.

*• Brilliant passages." — Glasgow Evening News.

'* The book deserves high praise. It shows a glowing imagination and a
sprightly fancy, as well as much sympathy with nature ; and her descriptions
of scenery are often very beautiful." — Manchester Guardian.

" The most romantic book of travels we have ever read. Full of mystery
and magnificence. No work of fiction, no book of imaginative literature, no
story of travel that will issue from the press this winter can surpass the
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THE THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING SOCIETY,
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NIGHTMARE TALES.

By H. P. BLAVATSKY.

Illustrated by R. MAC HELL.

Five weird Stories, original in tbeir ideas and brilliant in their tellini:.
Clairvoyance extraordinary, Witchcraft and Sorcery.

OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.

" This is a shilling shocker, and no mistake, but one far superior to those which
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been, there is no doubt that she was a wonderful writer. Although some of these
stories are too horrible for anything, they all bear the distinctive mark of their
author's genius. Nothing that Edgar Allan Poe ever wrote can excel the horror
of the story of clairvoyance, with its awful illustration of the torture of eternity.
It is impossible to read it without a shudder, for through it we get a ghmpse of a
region in which it is possible to conceive of hell." — Review of Reviews.

" The late Madame Blavatsky in the rS/e of a writer of a shilling shocker is
something new. Yet she plays the part in the book called Nightmare Tales to
perfection. Her stories are marked by a weird, lurid power that is enthralling,
and by a cultured, graceful style that is very pleasing. The first and longest tale
— ' A Bewitched Life ' — is so gruesome as to be almost repulsive. The last story
in the book — ' The Ensouled Violin ' — is the most artistic, but all the tales display
strong literary power and brilliant imagination." — Dundee Advertiser.

" Whatever view is held of the author, readers will grant that she displays great
literary power in weaving and depicting with graphic force these fanciful stories,
which have enough of weirdness about them to furnish forth a dozen Christmas
Annuals of the old-fashioned ghostly type." — Glasgow Herald.

"Nervous people had better not read Madame Blavatsky's tales." — Weekly
Dispatch.

"The brain-work of this extraordinary woman [H. P. Blavatsky] was prolific,
but the peculiar direction in which she exercised her talents naturally restricted her
students to a comparatively Umited section. The Nightmare Tales, as the title
sufficiently indicates, are of a different character, and as the imaginative element
is strongly en evidence, the book will likely find its way into an infinitely wider
sphere than that embraced by the Theosophical movement." — Belfast Morning
News.

" These tales exhibit the powers of Madame Blavatsky as a writer, and especially
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" If you want something to give you the creeps, get Nightmare Tales by
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" A more gruesome story than ' A Bewitched Life' it would be difficult to find ;
Mr. Edgar Poe might, indeed, have written it, but not without the aid of a colla-
borator from Hanwell. ... It will not please Madame Blavatsky to see her book
at the head of our 'shilling shockers," but that is the position it will occupy for
some time to come. Nightmare Tales is the very name for it." — Illustrated
London News.

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THE080PHICAL MANUALS, NO. I.

fflhe jSeven J^rinciples of Qan.

By ANNIE BESANT.

A popular exposition of the constitution of man, according to the Esoteric
Philosophy, popularly known as Theosophy. It deals with the physical body
and its consciousness; "the double," or ethereal body; the life-principle; the
passional self, developing after death into the " spook " ; the brain-mind of man ;
the higher mind ; the spiritual soul ; the spirit Also with the phenomena of the
s^nce-room, ol mesmeric and hypnotic trance, thought-reading, &c., &c. The
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DEATH

AND AFTER?

By ANNIE BESANT.

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man : body, soul, and spirit ; the fate of the body ; life in death ;
Death an unrobing of the soul ; the moment of death ; the astral
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THE

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LUCIFER:

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{Founded by H. P. BLA VATSKY.)
Editor: ANNIE BESANT. Sub-editor : G. R. S. MEAD.

Devoted to Theosophical topics, treating them with special
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WILLIAM Q. JUDGE.

DEVOTED TO

THE BROTHERHOOD OF HUMANITY,
THEOSOPHY IN AMERICA,

AND THE STUDY OF

occult science, philosophy, and
Aryan literature.

FOUNDED IN 1886.

New York: 144, MADISON AVENUE.

$2 PER YEAR IN ADVANCE, 20 CENTS PER COPY.
ISSUED MONTHLY.

Subscriptions, 8s. per annum, post free, may be sent
to the Theosophical Publishing Society, 7, Duke
Street, Adelphi, London, W.C. Single numbers,
IS. each.

THE

THEOSOPHIST.

Zbc popular Heiattc flDagasine.

CONDUCTED BY

Colonel H. S. OLCOTT.

A Monthly Magazine of Oriental Philosophy, Art,
Literature, and Occultism. It contains, each month, at
least 64 pages of reading matter. It is now offered as a
vehicle for the dissemination of facts and opinions con-
nected with the Asiatic religions, philosophies, and sciences,
and numbers among its contributors learned Br&hman
pandits, Mohammedan, Sufi, and Buddhist native scholars,
as well as those who are pursuing special studies, both
practically and theoretically, in Occultism.

" A high-class literary organ. . . • We marvel at the beauty and accuracy
with which this magazine is edited." — Public Opinion.

" ' The Theosophist ' should find many readers." — Indian Spectator
(Bombay).

" Much to interest." — Times of India.

" Most interesting for lovers of the mystical lore." — Bombay Gazette.

' The Theosophist ' Is the organ of the Theosophical Society, and
Is published In India, at Adyar, Madras.

Subscription price, 20s. per annum. Single nnmbers, 2s. each.

THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING SOCIETY,

7, Duke Street, Adelphi, London, W.C.

Zhc ^beosopbfcal Societie.

The objects of the Theosophical Society are : —

1. To form the nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity, without dis-
tinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or colour.

2. To promote the study of Aryan and other Eastern literatures, reUgions,
philosophies and sciences, and to demonstrate its importance.

3. To investigate unexplained laws of natiu'e, and the psychic powers latent in
man.

Any one who accepts the first object of the Society, without reservation, can
become a member. The rules of the Society, and all information, can be obtained
by writing to the General Secretary, Theosophical Society, 17 & 19, Avenue Road,
Regent's Park, London, N.W.

BOOKS FOR GENERAL ENQUIRERS.

Students are advised to read the books in the folloiving order : — s. d.

Ocean of Theosophy. William Q. Judge 26

The Seven Principles of Man. Annie Besant 10

Reincarnation. Annie Besant 10

Death-^nd After? Annie Besant 10

The Key to Theosophy. H. P. Blavatsky 60

Esoteric Buddhism. A. P. SiNNETT 40

FOR MORE ADVANCED STUDENTS:

Isis Unveiled. H. P. Blavatsky 42 o

The Secret Doctrine. H. P. Blavatsky 45 o

ETHICAL:

The Voice of the Silence. Trans, by H. P. Blavatsky . . . . 26

The Bhagavad Gita. {American Edition) 46

The Light of Asia, Sir Edwin Arnold 36

PAMPHLETS :

Wilkesbarre Letters on Theosophy. Alex. Fullerton , . . . 06

Indianapolis Letters on Tlieosophy. Alex. Fullekton . . . . 06

Epitome of Theosophical Teachings. Wm. Q. Judge .. .. 03

Esoteric Basis of Christianity. W. Kingsland 04

The Higher Science. W. Kingsland 02

Theosophy and its Evidences. Annie Besant 03

Why I became a Theosophist. Annie Besant 04

The Sphinx of Theosophy. Annie Besant 03

' In Defence of Theosophy. Annie Besant 02

From 1875 to 1891. (A Fragment of Autobiography.) Annie

Besant 02

A Rough Outline of Theosophy. Annie Besant 03

The Theosophical Society and H. P. B. Annie Besant and H.

T. Patterson 03

Short Glossary of Theosophical Terms. Annie Besant and

Herbert Burrows 01

ThiK)sophy and Christianity. Annie BesaNT 02

Theosophy in Questions and Answers. Annie Besant .. .. 03

Introduction to Theosophy. Annie Besant 03

Tbe above works can all be obtained at the offices of the Theosophical
PnbUsMng Society, 7, Duke Street, Adelphi, London, W.C.

tile ©rc«|«m Pre00,

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